:■ ^^^.to-av 



I 



EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



BY 

E^' THOMSON, D. D., LL. D. 



NEW EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED 



EDITED BY 



EEV. D. W. CLAEK, D. D. 



^^^^. 



Cinnitnati: 



PUBLISHED BY L. SWORMSTEDT & A. FOE, 



I 



FOR THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, AT THE WESTERN BOOK CONCKKN, 
CORNER OF MAIN AND EIGHTH STREETS. 

R. P. THOMPSON, PRINTER. 

:8 5S. 



^^^1 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 185G, 

BY SWORMSTEDT & POE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District 

of Ohio. 



/I- 'if^di 



4! 

I 

Irefate. 



DURING the half century just past, no writers, as 
a class, have occupied a higher position in our 
English literature, or exerted a wider influence upon 
the literary mind than the essayist and reviewer. 
Theirs has become a distinct vocation, occupying the 
profoundest thinkers, the keenest logicians, and the 
most gifted writers. Among these, the names of Cole- 
ridge, Jeffrey, Wilson, Macintosh, De Quincey, Car- 
lyle, Macaulay, Brougham, Lamb, D'Isreali, Camp- 
bell, Hazlitt, Sydney Smith, Talfourd, Rogers, Ever- 
ett, Giles, Sumner, and Whipple — successors of " the 
old British essayists" — shine as a brilliant galaxy. 
Wherever the English language goes forth in its 
progress over the earth, there will their influence 
be felt; and, indeed, we can hardly conceive of a 
period in the coming future when they will cease to 
charm by the beauty of their imagery and the brill- 
iancy of their wit, or to instruct by the calm dignity 
of their diction and the lucid expositions of literature 
and philosophy which gleam along their pages. 

With unhesitating confidence, we claim for the au- 
thor of these " Educational Essays " a place in the 
brotherhood of the essayists of the age. The natu- 
ralness of his method, the transparent clearness and 



4 PREFACE. 

purity of his style, the aptness and beauty of his 
illustrations, must challenge commendation from the 
most critical and exacting. Then, too, impregnating 
the whole, is the moral and religious element — where 
too many other essayists have sadly failed. The edu- 
cation developed in these pages is not one that dis- 
plays a mock morality and a false faith ; but one in 
w^iich the religion of the Bible is made to assume its 
true place as the foundation-stone. Every-where 
does the author recognize the importance of com- 
bining religious culture with general education, in 
order that the world may be saved from the curse 
of unsanctified knowledge. 

The author of these essays is said to be of the 
same family stock as James Thomson, the poet of the 
" Seasons." What Lord Littleton said of the poet, 
we believe may be said with equal propriety of the 
essayist — that his writings contain 

*' No line which, dying, he could wish to hlot." 

D. W. Clark. 
Cincinnati, May, 1856. 



COlfTENTS. 



jBiruf alijonal 3Bj5j5 ajjef. 

Close Thought Page 9 

Geneeal Education 33 

Uses of Chemistky 62 

Poisoning 67 

Conflicts of Life 71 

The Path to Success 95 

Mental Symmetry 114 

The Inner World 138 

Inaugural Address 157 

Extremes in Philosophy 186 

Religious Ideas the Basis of Education 210 

Moral Education 234 

Miscellaneous Reading 258 

Necessity of Colleges 282 

Logic, in its Relations to Medical Science 303 

Hints to Youth 326 

Female Education 354 

Originality 376 

Higher Education 393 

6 



^bncational issap. 



EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



Cl0H ®I]0UJ(|L 



rpHOUGHT is tlie foundation of all intellectual excel- 
-'- lence. What is it that constitutes darkness in the 
individual or the age? The absence of thought — strong 
thought. What is it that has handed down innumerable 
errors from generation to generation ? The want of 
thought. What was it that entombed the world's mind 
for ages? The world's fearful experiment to dispense 
with thought. 

What was it that burst the chains of religious bondage, 
and gave to Europe moral freedom? What is it that 
has spread before our vision so many natural truths — 
that has opened so wide the path of discovery — has 
crowded it with so many anxious inquirers, and is pre- 
paring the way for the general education of the human 
race ? Thought. 

And yet it may be doubted whether men, even in the 
most enlightened portions of the world, do not act more 
from authority than from reason. Man's natural indo- 
lence induces him to adopt the opinions of others, rather 
than to form opinions for himself. He would rather 
read or write, look or hear, talk or laugh, than think. 
Perhaps no one has ever acquired a habit of reasoning 
without having tried a variety of expedients to dispense 
with it; while thousands forego the pleasure of original 

9 



10 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

thought, because they will not pay the price. Like 
sheep, they follow a leader, and have no other reason for 
being gregarious, than ^Hpse dixit — iia est.'' 

May I not hope, therefore, gentle readers, that an hour 
of your time may not be unprofitably spent in pondering 
a few remarks on close thought! 

As the theme is a term, and not a proposition, it will 
be necessary to prescribe some limits, in order to avoid 
discursive remarks. I propose, therefore, to inquire, firstj 
what close thought implies; and, second, what are some 
of the subterfuges of those who avoid it. 

1. It implies unity of thought. I do not suppose that 
a man should have but one thought, or one favorite 
thought, or one particular series of thoughts. There is 
a man of one idea. He seems fitted to revolve but one 
notion. In silence and in uproar, in sunshine and in 
shade — whether he sings or prays, laughs or cries, reads 
or writes, flies or triumphs — at morn, at noon, at dewy 
eve, and " even in visions of the night, when deep sleep 
falleth upon man," his favorite conception occupies all 
his faculties. He hears it in running brooks, reads it in 
beauteous vales, sees it in every thing. He treats men, 
books, and things, as did Lord Peter, in the "Tale of a 
Tub," his father's will, who, determined to find the word 
"shoulder-knots," picked it out letter by letter, and at 
last substituted C for K in the orthography. His mind, 
like the touch of the fabled Midas, which turned every 
thing into gold, transmutes all the thoughts with which 
it meets into the one golden idea. Such a mind may 
have variety, but that variety must consist of the various 
phases which the favorite thought assumes in pursuing 
its endless revolutions. 

Perhaps most of you may be acquainted with living 
examples. As it would be manifestly improper for me to 
allude to such, I will advert to the well-authenticated 



CLOSE THOUGHT. 11 

story of an ecclesiastic of a former age, whose mind was 
so thoroughly preoccupied with certain doctrines, that 
he often preached election, reprobation, and foreordina- 
tion from the text, ^'Parthians, Medes, and Elamites/' 

It is a beautiful hypothesis of a school of philosophy, 
that there is a regular gradation among created beings, 
from the tallest archangel to the minutest particle of 
inanimate matter. As the polypus serves to connect the 
world animated with the world inanimate, so this mind 
may be serviceable as a connecting link between soul 
irrational and spirit rational. 

Such a mind is like the polypus in more than one 
respect. It is said of that parasite, that, deriving nour- 
ishment from the moisture of the atmosphere, it flour- 
ishes as well on the sea-washed rock, as on the verdant 
vale — having no organism, but living by absorption, it 
may be turned inside out, without suffering injury or 
inconvenience; and being unique, it may be cut into 
sections, and each part retain its beauty and perfection. 
So with such a mind — it is the same in the most barren 
as in the most fertile region of conception; and all its 
delicate and complicated machinery being drawn into a 
simple hollow, intellectual canal — increasing by no elabo- 
rate processes of moral secretion and digestion, but by 
simple absorption from the inner and outer surfaces — it 
might be indefinitely divided, if mind were divisible, and 
each part possess all the loveliness and perfection of the 
primordial being. 

I say not that such a mind must necessarily be weak — 
it may be strong, but it can not be healthy — its condition 
is that of monomania. It is as pitiable an anomaly in 
the moral world, as an animal with one muscle and capa- 
ble only of flexion and extension, would be in the natural 
world. 

By unity of thought I mean that a man should have 



12 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

but one thouglit at a time. Unity of effort is essential 
to vigorous action. The human mind, in its best estate, 
is limited. The triumphs of the proudest human soul 
are few and humble. Physiologists have said that no 
two general specific diseases can occupy the same system 
at the same time. If a stronger malady assail the body, 
preoccupied by a weaker, the besieged may retire from 
its fortress, and give place to the besieger; the latter 
having run its course may retire, and the former may 
return and finish its career. Upon this principle the 
dreaded practice of exciting ptyalism, in febrile affec- 
tions, is founded — the physician expecting that, by in- 
ducing the mercurial fever, he will overcome the more 
dreaded intermittent or remittent. We leave to others 
the settlement of the physiological principle and the 
practice founded upon it. Our purpose is to illustrate 
the psychological law that the mind can not be occupied 
with two important thoughts at the same moment. By 
attempting to grasp many thoughts at once, we grasp no 
one firmly. The story told — if I mistake not — by Dr. 
Franklin, of the child who, while he held an apple in 
each hand firmly, sought to bear off a third and lost all 
of them — a story originally employed to exhibit the folly 
of avarice — will serve to illustrate the futility of the 
attempt to seize a dozen thoughts together. The mind, 
confused by a thousand ideas at once, can no more reason 
than could a shepherd discourse with his friend amid the 
din of a thousand forge hammers. 

I would not be understood that in examining one 
thought we may not examine others collaterally. In 
tracing one thought we shall meet with many; for no one 
is isolated. As in sailing down a stream we find our- 
selves in a swelling channel, constantly enlarging by the 
accession of tributaries; so, in pursuing a thought, we 
shall find it enlarging and multiplying its relations. 



CLOSE THOUGHT. 13 

Only let us take care to sail down tlie main channel 
instead of trying to sail up each tributary. 

It may be thought that by limiting the mind we con- 
tract it. It is true that there is a mighty intellect, capa- 
ble of far-sweeping thought, which seems crippled when 
confined. It spurns all common restraints, and stationing 
itself on an eminence, which others may never hope to 
gain, and placing to the eye a telescope of greatest power, 
sees far beyond the vision of ordinary minds, and reveals 
wonders before unconceived. But generally the man who 
always makes the wide world, or the wide universe, the 
theater of observation, will see no more than any other 
eye can perceive; whereas, if he limited the field of 
observation, and applied a microscope to it, he would 
discover a thousand beauties, not less new, not less won- 
derful, though less magnificent, than those which the tel- 
escope discloses to the observer, on the eminence which, 
to all common footsteps, is unapproached and unapproach- 
able. Allow your mind to range freely, direct your 
attention to nothing in particular, and you may have 
variety, but it will be barren, common, tasteless — nothing 
new, nothing original, nothing striking. 

Take a single thought and trace its connections — if it 
belong not to the exact sciences, in which the relations 
are those of degree and proportion, or to the ethical, in 
which they are those of conformity to established rules, 
you will find a thousand beautiful relations. Let us 
specify a few : 

(1.) Relations of connection. Every thought is con- 
nected with a family of extensive ramifications. To be 
thoroughly acquainted with it, we must not be content to 
view it alone. Like the ingenious suitor, we must allow 
it to introduce us to its relatives, watch its movements 
in the family circle, observe it under the play of domes- 
tic affinities, compare it with the other branches of its 



14 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

beloved sisterhoodj and question, frequently and ingen- 
iously, its most intimate companions. It is only in this 
way that we can obtain a knowledge of its occult charac- 
teristics. These, like the skillful coquette, it will hide 
from all but the close and practiced observer. 

(2.) There are relations of correspondence. Every 
thought may be regarded as having an extensive partner- 
ship — co-operating with others in manufacturing certain 
moral fabrics. It is amusing and edifying to trace out, 
in any given case, the members of the firm- — to examine 
the bond which binds them — to mark the stock which 
each has in trade — to ascertain the part which each per- 
forms in the common business, and see their mutual com- 
munications and operations. 

(3.) Relations of dependence. Every thought, unless 
it be a first truth, has a basis on which it reposes, and in 
its turn affords foundation to others. To see how far it 
is dependent, and how far independent — to mark where 
it receives, and where it furnishes support, is an exciting 
and gratifying task. 

(4.) Relations of analogy. The endless variety observ- 
able in the natural world is no less noticeable in the 
moral world. It is, at once, an exercise of attention, of 
memory, of judgment, and of imagination, to group to- 
gether analogous thoughts, and to mark differences and 
resemblances. And this exercise confers the power of 
nice discrimination. 

(5.) Relations of composition. The unlearned man 
may wonder why one single mass of ore, not larger than 
a nutshell, should furnish matter of experiment to a 
chemist for a whole day — should induce him to call into 
requisition so many tests — to employ so much curious 
apparatus — to blow up his fires and fill his retorts; while 
he could plow over ten acres of the soil, or shovel up 
twenty cart-loads of it with less time and trouble. Many 



CLOSE THOUGHT. 15 

a thought which a coarse mind would deem too small to 
be picked up, if subjected to a discerning intellect, may 
be deemed a worthy subject of long hours of experiment 
under the most complicated mental processes. Do you 
doubt? then take some thought, subject it to rigid analy- 
sis, and see if you do not find matter for all your atten- 
tion, and power, and furniture of mind; and if you do 
not receive, as the result of your decomposition, some 
element, which, if inflamed, may illuminate the darkest 
chamber, or fuse the hardest moral metal. 

You will perceive, therefore, that the steady direction 
of the mind to one thought, so far from causing paucity 
of ideas, is productive of a rich variety. So intimately 
connected are sciences, that no man can obtain a perfect 
knowledge of any one, without acquiring a knowledge of 
many others. So it is with single facts. The Portu- 
guese, in returning from Cape Baj adore, discovered the 
island of Madeira. In their voyages to more southern 
capes of the then unknown parts of Africa, they met 
with Cape Yerde islands and the Azores. In their search 
after a new way from the Tagus to India, they discovered 
the rich country of Brazil. In their glorious career of 
geographical discovery, they enlarged their commerce — 
in increasing their commerce, they enlarged their manu- 
factures. 

Send out the mind upon the ocean of truth, and, even 
though in pursuit of a single thought, it will meet, in its 
voyage, with others of which it does not dream. 

2. Close thought implies fixedness of attention and 
concentration of mental energy. Washington Irving has 
remarked, that this habit is rarely possessed by Ameri- 
cans. They are more accustomed to observe than to rea- 
son — they rely more upon facts than upon arguments. 
If this be so, it is the more important to call attention 
to the subject; for it is the stern decree of Heaven that 



16 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

concentration of mind is essential to powerful conception. 
The looet's soul, like the maniac's eye, may roll in pleas- 
ing frenzy. To the student or the jphilosophery whose 
object is the discipline of the mind, or the investigation 
of truth, steadiness of gaze is indispensable. The light 
of the sun possesses no power, when radiating freely, to 
fire the softest piece of timber. Is there a mind so glo- 
rious as to challenge the orb of day as a fit emblem of 
itself, it must converge its rays to a focus before it can 
become a burning light. There must be a fixing of 
attention, a combination of the faculties, a gathering of 
the soul's energies, a narrow limitation of the field of 
exertion, in order to eff"ect any thing important in the 
region of thought. Small triumphs may be gained by 
scattered companies, but troops must be marshaled upon 
the same plain, obey the same commander, fight the same 
foe, to efi"ect a glorious achievement. Do you wish to be 
capable of triumphant mental exertion? Subdue all 
your faculties, teach them to obey your commands with 
promptitude — to move with automatic precision — to act 
in concert — to rush to headquarters at a moment's warn- 
ing — to seize a subject with vigor, pursue it with perse- 
verance, and a determination never to leave it till 
iJioroughly mastered. This is what phrenologists call con- 
centrativeness — without it the most powerful organs are 
weak. 

3. Close thought implies iKitient, lahorious research. 
The curse which dooms man to perpetual toil as the price 
of his subsistence, penetrates his soul, and sheds the 
dews of perspiration upon his brow, before it allows the 
spirit to feel a consciousness of health and vigor, or per- 
mits it to thrust the sickle into a rich and abundant 
harvest of thought. Fancy may take flights in parox- 
ysms, but reason receives truth as the reward of only 
patient, persevering toil. God has equalized his gifts in 



CLOSE THOUGHT. 17 

the moral world more than is generally supposed. Excel- 
lences of mind are less the gift of nature than the re- 
wards of industry. I say not that there are no original 
differences of mind; but that these are not such as to 
prevent the ordinary peasant, by a slow, steady, upward 
movement of mind, from leaving, at a sightless distance 
in his rear, the brightest genius that ever the globe 
rocked — if that genius allow his thoughts to range un- 
concentrated, untrained. 

The eagle, fitted by God to sail aloft, directing a steady 
gaze at the orb .of day, can neither attain nor maintain a 
lofty elevation without an active pinion. The ancients 
represented, in fable, that Minerva, goddess of wisdom 
and liberal arts, s]3rang mature, perfect, full-armed, from 
the head of Jupiter; but if you, like the fabled father 
of men, and king of gods, nourish beneath the mem- 
branes of your brain a full-armed, perfect goddess, you 
will find that you shall suffer throes within the cranium — 
as he is represented to have done — and need the skill 
and the ax of Vulcan to open your skull, before that vir- 
gin shall spring and dance the Pyrrhic dance, and strike 
her shield, and brandish her spear, and show her blue 
eye, and breathe her martial fury, and enrapture ancient 
proficients in virtue and wisdom with the depth of her 
counsels. 

Many a noble mind has failed to accomplish aught 
because it would not labor. Much as men are indisposed 
to physical, they are still more disinclined to mental toil. 
Let a man sit down to cogitation — he feels it to be bur- 
densome — he thinks his stock of thoughts must soon be 
exhausted — he grows discouraged. Imagination now ap- 
pears in robes of light — she offers a lovely bower — she 
spreads a mossy couch — she promises to fan with gentle 
zephyrs, to delight with lovely landscapes, and lull to 
repose with murmuring rivulets and gently-flowing tor- 



18 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

rents. Without resolution wlio will not yield to the 
charmer? Sometimes, in the midst of our first efforts at 
original and continuous thought, works of taste open 
their fascinating pages, and offer to introduce us into a 
world of unmarred loveliness. Often, when enduring 
the toil of research, we find a path at hand ready tarn- 
piked, leading to the truth of which we are in pursuit. 
The temptation is too great — we abandon our own path, 
pass easily along the beaten track, with common minds, 
and although we arrive at the object, lose mental strength 
and confidence, and the sweet consciousness of original 
discovery. Occasionally we excuse our minds from labor 
by sliding from investigation to some other duty, prom- 
ising; a return under more favorable circumstances. 
Felix dismissed St. Paul, promising to send for him 
when he had a convenient season — that season Felix 
never found. 

No one will ever prosecute a connected train of thought 
without holding an iron scepter, with a steady hand, over 
the powers of his mind. Never did warrior, scaling 
snow-clad Alps, need more decision, and perseverance, 
and steadiness, than he who ascends elevated summits of 
thought, bearing upward his reluctant fiiculties against 
ten thousand persuasive arguments and gravitating influ- 
ences. Rugged cliffs, threatening eminences, terrific 
glaciers are not more opposing obstacles to the traveler 
than are those which present themselves to the undisci- 
plined mind in its attempt at rigorous investigation. 

Second. Let us consider the excuses of those who 
avoid close thought. 

1. It is frequently asked. Is not tliought spontaneous — 
suggested by laws of association beyond the control of 
reason ? If so, whence the necessity of mental exertion ? 
This query is frequently the subterfuge of indolence. 
The agriculturist might say, is not vegetable nutrition 



CLOSE THOUGHT. 19 

dependent on laws beyond human regulation? why, then, 
need we plow, or sow, or disturb the earth with harrows ? 
What though thought be not at the bidding of arbi- 
trary will — is there no necessity for the employment 
of intellect? The existence of mental faculties, the re- 
wards which sweeten intellectual toil, the curses which 
pursue the conscience-smitten sluggard, constitute a burn- 
ing reply to the question. 

Two ways may be pointed out in which reason may 
influence thought. First, it has the power of election 
and reprobation among suggested ideas. It can detain 
a thought which otherwise might pass on unnoticed, or 
it may dismiss a thought which seems fitted to occupy 
the attention. The detention of an idea gives rise to a 
series, which might never have been introduced had not 
its precursor been fixed. So also when a conception is 
expelled, its associates are banished with it. The exer- 
tion of this power is of incalculable importance. It 
needs no inspiration to discern within the soul a tendency 
to evil, which gives to pernicious thought an aptitude to 
engage. To raise a crop of weeds or brambles we need 
neither sow nor plow. Simply to neglect the soul is to 
abandon it to the possession of all that is unlovely. We 
are naturally indolent; but useful ideas, like useful 
plants, require cultivation — if, therefore, wholesome 
thought springs up in the uncultured mind, it wilts, and 
withers, and dies. What greater privilege does the 
gardener need than that of selecting from the thousand 
productions which prolific nature pours around him? Let 
him but eradicate every weed within his little inclosure, 
and dig around the roots of his shrubs, his pinks, and his 
lilies, and he will soon reap his reward in the beauties 
and fragrance of his beds and bowers. 

What but this has transformed a rude spot into that 
''garden of tears'' which enraptures every wanderer on 



20 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

^'swoct Mondego's cvcr-vcrclant vale?" Nature is no less 
bountiful to the world invisible than to that which is 
physical. Does any one complain of barrenness or bram- 
bles, let him examine whether the abundance of his 
neighbors be owing to any superiority in soil. Go, thou 
sluggard, go — fence thy grounds, plow thy soil, pluck 
thy weeds, cultivate thy vines and flowers; and scarce 
wilt thou be able to say, '^ Awake, north wind, and 
come thou south — blow upon my garden, that the spices 
thereof may flow out,'^ before thou shalt see the grape 
blush upon the vine, the carnation breathe its fragrance, 
the rose disclose its beauty. 

A second way by which the reason may influence con- 
ception, consists in putting the mind in approximation to 
desired thought. We are all conscious that we are able 
to exert the mind arbitrarily in the recollection of forgot- 
ten facts and^ personages. A friend in the street inquires 
for a mutual acquaintance — we are aware that we know 
him, but are unable to remember him. We pause a 
moment and endeavor to bring him to recollection — 
instantly he flashes upon the mind. Here we are con- 
scious of voluntarily placing the soul upon a track which 
we knew would lead to the person whose image we wished 
to recall. This is called intentional memory. In some 
cases we can distinctly trace the progress; in others, 
though the footsteps arc undiscerniblc, we are conscious 
of the movement. This is bearing the soul backward 
through familiar truths to truths forgotten ; but it serves 
to illustrate what I have in view, by the voluntary plac- 
ing of the soul in relation to undiscovered truth. When 
we seek to discover a truth, we may bear the mind onward 
toward the point whence it may be seen. Though we may 
not be able to map our course, we may, nevertheless, be 
apprised of our journey. Though we may not reach our 
point, we may travel foicard it, and can not fail of as- 



CLOSE THOUGHT. 21 

cending to elevated points and opening our eyes on fields 
of unwonted light. Do we desire to discover new laws 
of matter or of mind^ or to observe new correspondences 
in the inner and the outer^ the physical and the intel- 
lectual worlds? Let us ascend to the tract of thought, 
where such laws are discovered, such correspondences 
observed, and dwell where the patient eye ca« not long 
gaze upon the scenes spread before it without perceiving 
new and transporting forms. It is by calm and persever- 
ing observation alone that unknown truth is made known. 
It may come unexpectedly but not unsought. The eye 
may have no more difficulty in opening upon it than upon 
any other truth • but the steps to the ascent whence it 
was discoverable may be numerous and steep. 

This capability of putting the mind in such relations 
as are fruitful in rich and new ideas, is a great advantage 
which the cultivator of the mind possesses over the tiller 
of the soil. It is as though the gardener had the power 
of removing his garden at pleasure to any climate he 
wished, and allowing it to remain there till it experienced 
its characteristic effects, and unbosomed its peculiar fruits 
and flowers. 

2. It has often been remarked that origiiial discovery — 
original thought, is generally/ accidental. It may be so 
apparentli/, but not really. Two facts may satisfy us of 
this. Ignorant men are not discoverers. New truths are 
revealed only to patient observers, and bold and persever- 
ing inquirers. Who discovered the circulation of the 
blood? Not the ignorant, thoughtless butcher; but the 
scientific, reflecting anatomist. Who discovered the as- 
teroids? They who by years of reflection and observa- 
tion were led to suspect their existence. Who revealed 
the laws of the heavens? He who, for a lifetime, had 
laid his head in intense and untiring thought about 
them. The least exertion may be sufficient to make a 



22 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

fortunate discovery, wlien the mind is filled with the rich 
results of long reflection ; whereas the same reflection on 
the part of an unfurnished mind may he utterly unpro- 
ductive — as the weight of a grain may turn the scale- 
beam against a tun, after nearly twenty hundred weight 
have been put into the opposite dish. 

It frequently happens that discoveries are made simul- 
taneously in difi'erent parts of the world; but rarely is a 
discovery made in advance of the age. Roger Bacon is 
the only remarkable example of a mind outstripping the 
race by ages ; and the Pope excommunicated him, and 
imprisoned him ten years for supposed dealings with the 
devil. The human mind during the dark ages scarce 
ever shot a spark into the regions of science; but when 
the intellectual night receded, the beams of a thousand 
stars mingled their light for the illumination of Europe, 
and each nation had her constellation. Simultaneous 
discoveries are the legitimate offspring of the times. 
The discoveries do not illustrate the age, but the age 
develops the discoveries. They are the necessary, and 
we might say the inevitable results of the accumulations 
of generations of excitement, and ages of progressive 
thought. 

3. It may be objected that some of the happiest pro- 
ductions in the department of taste were the sudden 
cffiLsions of moments of inspiration. Granting that an ex- 
traordinary genius may take happy flights in unprepared 
moments, is that any reason why ordinary minds should 
wait for poetic breathing? In judging of the labor ex- 
pended upon any given production, an unpracticed com- 
poser may be deceived. That which smells most of the 
lamp is not really the most elaborate. A celebrated critic 
pronounced the finest writing to be such as a reader would 
imagine exceedingly easy to equal, and yet such, that 
whoever should attempt to imitate it^ would perspire over 



CLOSE THOUGHT. 23 

his task. It is the half-finished production which leaves 
the marks of labor. 

A distinguished clergyman of my acquaintance, when- 
ever he preached a long, and learned, and involved ser- 
mon, generally apologized by saying that he had not time 
to prepare a short and simple one. A celebrated barrister 
of one of our eastern cities is said to employ a style which 
is the personification of simplicity, and yet he is perhaps 
more studious and laborious in his preparations for the 
bar than all his competitors. A little tract sometimes 
costs more labor than a volume. The perfected composi- 
tion, like the finished edifice, is the result of double toil, 
labor in erecting, and labor in removing the scaffolding, 
and scraping away the traces of the tools. It is said of Per- 
icles, "who lightened, thundered, and astonished Greece,'^ 
that he never spoke extempore, nor even ventured to de- 
liver an opinion without ample preparation. Virgil 
occupied ten years in writing six books of the ^nead. 
Not a single page of fine writing was ever produced with- 
out much intellectual efi'ort; a solitary sentence may ex- 
press the result of years of thought. The harvest may 
be gathered in a day, but plowing, and planting, and 
growth require time. If inspiration may be relied on, 
why does it not operate upon the indolent as well as the 
active, the fool as well as the wise man ? He who, too 
idle to think, sits and sighs, and invokes the muses, will 
drink the Lethean sooner than the Pierian spring. 

4. The privileges of the university will not supply the 
want of thought; but strong, continuous thought, will 
atone for the want of them. I hope that this remark 
will neither be misunderstood nor misrepresented. I 
trust I am as deeply impressed with the value of clas- 
sical studies as any man ought to be; though I regard 
them not as education itself, but as its instruments. 
Their chief value results from the mental discipline 



24 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

which they aflford. How sadly mistaken, then, is he 
who relies upon his literary privileges merely for future 
greatness ! He selects the best university, matriculates 
regularly, carelessly cons his lessons, but slurs over every 
difficult passage; relies much upon the aid of his superior 
classmates, and places his head upon the recitation bench 
in the vain hope that the intellects of others operating 
upon his passive soul, will mold him into a genius, as the 
hammer of the blacksmith shapes the iron upon his anvil 
into a horseshoe. Yerily such a one has his reward — 
a sheepskin. But can the drone thus purchase mental 
power with his father's gold? No. Nature spurns the 
insulting proposition, and says, ^^Thy money perish with 
thee." Better for such a one that he had never opened 
a page of Virgil or of Homer — that the temple of 
science had forever closed its gates against him. A.i 
the termination of his collegiate course, the university 
clothes him with its honors; the world expects him to 
stand "a man;" the father fondly looks to him for a 
realization of the delusive dream he had indulged con- 
cerning his cherished idol. He enters upon the duties 
of active life ; but, lo ! perhaps in the very first collision 
with the vigorous mind of the self-taught woodsman, he 
is demonstrated to be a learned fool. He deserves the 
sting of scorpions; l)ut his mortification is keener than 
the lash of an exterminating angel. This is no fancy 
sketch. It has many prototypes in real life. Nor is it 
much to be wondered at; but it is strange, passing 
strange, that so many of the modern ^^improvements" in 
the plan of education should be based upon a similar 
delusion. I refer to interpretations, interlinear transla- 
tions, etc., by which thought is superseded, and the very 
purpose for which the classics ought to be valued is 
frustrated. When the ancient poet, j^schylus, drew a 
picture of a great man — a picture, which, presented 



CLOSETHOUGIIT. 25 

in tlie theater, caused all the audience to turn to Aris- 
tides, as he whom it precisely suited — he painted a field 
deeply plowed, and, therefore richly productive. 

The following is a literal translation of this part of the 
description : 

" Heaping in mind the produce of the deep furrow." 

It is because the precious mental fruit springs from 
the deep furrow, that the classics are so valuable — they 
are the plowshare. To render them easy, by injudicious 
aids, is to grind your plowshare into dust, and scatter it 
over moral turf. The mere information they communi- 
cate is of little consequence. 

There have been men who have risen to eminence 
without classical attainments; but they acquired by 
other means that habit of thought which the classics 
are so peculiarly calculated to confer. As examples, take 
Franklin and Cobbett, the one an American philosopher, 
the other a British statesman; one was the glory of a 
former age, the other the glory of the present. What 
was the secret of their eminence? 

"I learned grammar [says Cobbett] when I was a pri- 
vate soldier, on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of 
my berth, or that of my guard-bed, was my seat to study 
in; my knapsack was my bookcase, and a bit of board 
lying on my lap was my writing-table. In winter time it 
was rarely that I could get any evening light but that of 
the fire, and only my turn even of that. To buy a pen, 
or a sheet of paper, I was compelled to forego some por- 
tion of food, though in a state of half starvation. I had 
no moment of time that I could call my own; and I had 
to read and write amidst the talking, laughing, singing, 
whistling, and bawling of at least half a score of the 
most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours of 

freedom from all control." Here was discipline. Here 

3 



•i6 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

was the habit of self-control, of close, patient, vigorous 
thought. 

5. There are some who have fallen into the sad mis- 
take, that reading is a substitute for thinking. This has 
been the curse of thousands. The age is emphatically a 
reading one. We read in infancy, in childhood, in man- 
hood, and old age; literally, we read ourselves from the 
cradle to the tomb. Scarce has an infant time to open 
its eyes upon the world, before it is tied to a stool to 
learn its book; and a man is considered an ignoramus 
unless he has read a line of pages large enough to reach 
from the earth to the moon. It often happens that a 
father congratulates himself upon the genius of his son, 
and the sure omens of his future eminence, simply because 
he is fond of reading. He seems to think the mind a 
repository, and that the process of making a great man 
consists in filling it up with books, and then putting it 
into some important situation in life to give occasion to its 
operations ; as though the soul were a tea-kettle, and you 
could fill it up, and set it over the fire, and produce the 
breathings of genius ad, libitum. To such a father I 
would say, beware, lest thy son prove an intellectual 
epicure — a dreaming fool. Such a caution is more neces- 
sary at this period, because much of our reading matter 
is worthless. It must be admitted that literature is in- 
creased, but is it not also diluted? Authors are multi- 
plied, but is genius advanced ? Every thing now is done 
by steam. Books are written and read in a hurry. 
There is evidently a degeneracy in the i:)roducing mind. 
Books seem to make up in size what they lack in sense, 
and often a grain of the solid gold of an old author is 
hammered into a flimsy octavo, to be called a "new 
book." The eccentric John Randolph once remarked in 
Congress, that he wished there were but two books in the 
world, "the Bible and Will Shakspeare." Although I 



CLOSET 11 OUGHT. 27 

demur, in part, to the selection of that erratic genius, 
I acknowledge the wisdom on which the suggestion is 
founded. 

Books are needed to convey information, and to stim- 
ulate the mind. When used for these purposes, they are 
legitimately employed; but when they are used for 
amusement instead of instruction, or to relieve the mind 
instead of assist it in cogitation, their tendency is per- 
nicious. Equally so, when they fill up all the attention, 
and leave no time or motive for thought. The mind 
always flowing in the track of borrowed ideas is weak, in- 
active, dependent. It has no tendency to observe, no 
curiosity to inquire, no capacity to produce. It is desti- 
tute of original conceptions, of lofty thought, of elevated 
purpose. 

To excite the mind and supply it with ideas, go rather 
to jiature than to books. The heavens and the earth 
offer food to the soul. Would you have pure and orig- 
inal thoughts? Go to the only pure and original fount- 
ain of ideas — nature. There lie on all her pages the 
beautiful and the sublime. Go send your soul to pillow 
herself upon the green earth, or enthrone herself upon the 
heavens ; bid her sail upon the whirlwind, step into the 
terrific tempest; place her ear to the thunder, and open 
her eye upon the lightning's path. She shall meet with 
ideas of beauty and of grandeur, and hold fellowship 
with Him who maketh the earth his footstool, the 
heavens his throne, the thunder his voice, the clouds 
his chariot, and whose footsteps are on the wings of the 
wind. What is the secret of success in medicine, in 
law, in divinity, in oratory ? Thought. Who is the dis- 
tinguished doctor? lawyer? divine? He who is given to 
patient observation and reflection. Show me the philoso- 
pher who was more fond of books than of nature. Was 
it Aristotle, who gave laws to Europe for more than thir- 



28 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

teen centuries? Was it Bacon, who poured such a flood 
of light upon the fields of philosophy? Was it Newton, 
who unraveled the laws of the universe ? Was it Locke, 
who applied the principles of the inductive philosophy to 
mind? Was it Bichat, who carried the same principles 
into the physiological sciences ? No, no. 

How did the ancient poet do? Homer had no books; 
and yet, for his image, the temple of Fame opens her 
^'holy of holies," and sends up the sweetest incense that 
ever exhaled from her altars. His soul kept house in 
the universe. The scenery of his native land supplied 
him with ideas, and like the widow's cruse of oil, was 
n ver exhausted or diminished by the using. The 
naked rocks of the jJEgean fired his mind. His heart, 
like the Eolian harp, was responsive to the passing 
breeze. " Sublimity covered him all the day long, and 
dwelt beneath his shoulders.'' He was blessed for the 
precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep 
that coucheth beneath, and for the precious things 
brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things 
put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the 
ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the 
lasting hills. The mind can scarcely fail to bring good 
tidings when its feet are upon the mountains. It is not, 
however, by an idle ramble that nature's beauties can be 
perceived. These are hidden from every eye that hath 
nut been taught to dwell upon them. It was a beautiful 
idea of the ancients, that the heavens and the earth are an 
allegorical representation, under the external form of which 
are couched ideas which the wise only can read. The 
soul formed to contemplation sees a thousand charms 
never revealed to the untutored mind. Before it the wil- 
derness breaks forth into singing, and the solitary place 
buds and blossoms as the rose. To such a mind the 
universe is like Anacreon's lyre, which, whatever was 



CLOSETHOUGHT. 29 

the poet's theme, or however he swept its chords, 
sounded out love only from its strings. 

let me listen to the ravished mind that has been 
musing on the fields! "Her lips drop as the honey- 
comb; honey and milk are under her tongue, and the 
smell of her garments is like the smell of Lebanon." 

Whence does the metaphysician draw his ideas? By 
turning his mind's eye inward, surveying the faculties, 
and their operations, tracing the thought through its 
stages — studying the laws of memory, imagination, judg- 
ment — making the soul the theme of its own observa- 
tions. Thus was Locke, Reid, Brown, Stewart, Coushi, 
taught. 

Who is the successful minister? The book- worm? 
Nay — the diligent student of his own heart. It was 
from his own bosom, next to the Bible, that Massilon 
drew his eloquence, Whitefield his power, Wesley his 
charm. Here, in the mysterious workings of the bosom, 
as in a mirror, you may behold the secret springs of 
human action, the various phases of human character, 
the deformity, and hideousness, and devilishness of de- 
praved humanity. Here you may examine the excuses 
of the sinner, and his refuges of lies; here see his fears 
and forebodings, his hopes and doubts; here trace the 
silent, melting, mellowing energies of the Divine Spirit, 
and the hellish suo;2;estions of the invisible foe. there 
are wells of inspiration in each human bosom, whence 
ano;el souls misrht draw! Here is the true Castalian 
fountain. Drink, drink deep, and then trust your pen, 
or tongue, for vivid delineations of burning thought. 
Inspired by communion with his own heart, the minister 
can not hut be eloquent. He comes forth on vantage- 
ground. He has obtained a perfect knowledge of the 
inmost workings of his hearers' hearts: "As face an- 
swereth to face in water, so the heart of man to man." 



30 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

The audience sit in mute astonishment. The stillness — ■ 
like that of death — is interrupted only by the falling 
tear, or the half-suppressed sigh, No wonder. An un- 
seen hand goes forth from the preacher into each bosom, 
and searches it; every one is conscious that, for the 
time, ho is a prisoner chained by the heart. It is almost 
as though one rose from the grave. 

What gave to Shakspeare his power? Surely he knew 
little of books. He read scarce any thing but human 
nature. Hence he drew whatever of sublimity, of fire, 
of elegance, of sweetness, inspired his song; and hence 
he derived that indescribable charm which is spread over 
all his pages. that it had been sanctified ! 

But you inquire, if poets and orators have gone to 
nature for ideas, may we not go to them? Go rather to 
the substance than the shadow. Go to the pure fountain, 
not the polluted stream. Think not so meanly of your 
soul as to suppose it unworthy, or incompetent, to receive 
a thought fresh from its source. To you the universe 
opens its rich and abundant fields of thought. If you 
would know their native fragrance and sweetness, you 
must gather them with your own hand. But if ideas 
could be derived from books, fresh and green as we 
receive them from nature, there would yet be a reason 
why we should rely upon our own efi'orts. The strength, 
and health, and happiness of the soul, is dependent upon 
the proper exercise of its faculties. 

6. Rhetoric and logic have been supposed by some to 
be suhsiitutes for thought. I quarrel not with these 
sciences. They have a beneficial influence on the mind, 
and are to be ranked high among elevated studies. But 
so far from beinc; substitutes for thousrht, thoug-ht is a 
substitute for them. They may be serviceahle, but they 
are not essential to the poet or orator. They did not go 
before to dig the channel in which the stream of genius 



CLOSET H OUGHT. 31 

Bhould flow forth ; they merely followed to observe its 
direction, and map the tributaries which swell the sweep- 
ing tide. 

With all the logic and rhetoric of Aristotle, a man 
could never produce an original thought, any more than 
a surveyor, with his compass, could call into existence the 
mountain he surveys. 

Think, if you would be eloquent ; think, and the brain 
will send down its influence upon the heart, and the 
heart will pour up its heated, reddened current to the 
brain ] and the brain will radiate afresh its exciting in- 
fluence upon the heart; and then the tongue can not 
avoid eloquence. She loill come down, and seat herself 
upon the lips. 

Does the excited heart need direction as to the manner 
of its pulsations ? As well teach the earth how to move 
in her orbit. You can not, if you ivoiild, direct. As 
well attempt to give laws to the earthquake, or the vol- 
cano, or learn the exploding magazine how it shall ex- 
pand. The excited heart scorns to think of rhetoric 
or logic. They dai-e not speak to her; but sit mute and 
enraptured spectators of her motions. They cease to be 
teachers, and become silent and humble, but enchanted 
worshipers. What was the eloquence of Demosthenes? 
The outbursting of an overflowing soul. What the elo- 
quence of Logan? The plaints of a wounded heart. 
What the eloquence of Tecumseh ? The eruptions of 
pent-up revenge and indignation. There is no rhetoric 
like that of the stimulated spirit. Who would lecture 
on the arrangements of arguments to the prisoner plead- 
ing for his life? Who would teach the inflexions of the 
voice, which are suitable for command, to the pilot, with 
his eye on the headland, the breakers, the midnight 
ocean storm, while his whole soul is roused to a struggle 
with the maddened elements? Would you preach on the 



32 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

tones appropriate for supplication to Dives putting his 
head out from the flames of perdition, to call on Abra- 
ham for a drop of water to cool his tongue ? 

Rhetoric and logic have their uses ; they do not precede, 
they follow thought. They may he concerned to crit- 
icise, to subdue, and chasten. But even in this office, 
let them be watched with suspicion. If you have writ- 
ten a line with a throbbing bosom, beware, then, beware 
how you put the rude hand of cold criticism upon it. 
Nature is nature's best interpreter. 

These sciences find their occasions of service in the 
outset of the mind ; but they only attend it in its grovel- 
ing walks. They are earthly instruments, and fitted 
only for terrestrial valleys. Once wrap the soul in a 
chariot of flames, and like Elijah ascending the heavens, 
it will fling away its staff and mantle. 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 33 



THE history of education may be divided into four 
periods. The first, commencing with the fall of man 
and extending to the Deluge, comprehends a term of 
two thousand years, and may he denominated the pa- 
triarchal. It is probable that, in this period, the whole 
race was in a semi-barbarous condition; they wandered 
in deserts and forests, depending upon fishing and the 
chase for subsistence, and consuming all their time and 
expending all their energies in procuring the necessaries 
of life. They had no agriculture, commerce, navigation, 
arts, or science worthy of the name. Their wars were 
collisions of brute force; their governments were of the 
simplest kind, growing, in most instances, out of the 
influence of aged patriarchs or veteran chiefs ; their 
arts were few and rude; their sciences consisted of a 
few phenomena, perverted to superstitious purposes; 
their religion, though based upon important revela- 
tions, was obscured, if not obliterated, by vain imagin- 
ations. The little knowledge which they possessed was 
transmitted only by tradition, as they had no written 
language. Their wealth was poverty, their courage fe- 
rocity, their wisdom superstition, their religion idolatry. 
God was the only teacher, and it was but now and 
then that he opened heaven and let down a truth upon 
them. Their wickedness hung an impenetrable cloud 
over them, and the few beams that darted through it 
from the skies were soon absorbed and lost in prevailing 



34 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

errors. There was. however, at all times, one luminous 
spot on earth, though often bound by a circle a few feet 
in diameter. Enoch, Nimrod, Noah, and kindred wor- 
thies, manifested vigorous intellect. The history of an- 
tediluvian ages is nearly lost; nor need we deplore the 
obscurity which rests over that distant period, since we 
know that it had no influence upon postdiluvian times, 
and that, if the vail could be removed, we could obtain 
no valuable information. 

After the Deluge, the human mind manifested in- 
creased activity. Less than two hundred years subse- 
quent to that event, Nimrod, or Belus, laid the founda- 
tions of Babylon, and Ashur built Nineveh, which be- 
came the capital of the Assyrian empire. Not long pos- 
terior, the Egyptian empire was founded by Menes, or 
Mizraim. 

A period of energy, and eflfort, and light ensued, com- 
prehending the history of the palmy days of Egypt, 
Greece, and Kome, and embracing a period of more 
than two thousand years. The first and perhaps the 
greatest development of human intellect, was in the val- 
ley of the Nile. Egypt attained an elevation in science, 
arts, and song, to which the world must look up for ages 
to come. The pyramids, temples, obelisks, columns, and 
colossal statues at Thebes, still remain — having resisted 
the desolations of time for many successive centuries — 
and attest the power, the perseverance, and the skill of 
Egyptian artisans. The shriveled mummy, torn from 
the emboweled catacomb, and transported to a distant 
shore, to gratify the eye of vain and eager curiosity, re- 
minds us that arts, of which we are ignorant, were known 
in early ages to Egypt. Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's 
Needles, and the forests of columns, and piles of ruins 
that are scattered all along the "city of the Dead,'' bear 
ample attestation to the ancient glory of Alexandria. 



r 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 35 

It is reasonable to suppose that when mankind passed 
from the migratory to the settled condition, the adjust- 
ment of the boundaries of their possessions would be an 
object of attention. Accordingly, we find that geometry 
is an ancient science; and although its methods, in 
early ages, were coarse, it nevertheless subserved the 
most valuable purposes. 

To what extent the natural sciences were cultivated 
we are at a loss to conceive; but we have sufficient 
ground to conjecture, that the external character of 
fossils, the structure of the earth, the nature of vegeta- 
bles, and the history of animals, were by no means over- 
looked by the philosophers of Egypt. 

The more important phenomena of the heavens were 
observed in*a very early age; and although no satisfac- 
tory manner of accounting for them was devised till a 
later period, yet the astronomical knowledge of antiquity 
was as accurate, if not as extensive, as widely diffused, 
though not as philosophical, as that of the nineteenth 
century of the Christian era. The phases of the moon, 
the precession of the equinoxes, the differences between 
solar and sidereal time were all familiarly known to an- 
cient Egypt. The zodiac was divided into signs by a 
process simple and ingenious, and requiring a persever- 
ance worthy of the highest reward. So common was 
astronomical knowledge in those early ages, that we have 
reason to suppose almost every distinguished individual 
had a horoscope, and that the zodiacs found in the 
ruins of Estne and Dendara are specimens of that in- 
strument. The true system of astronomy, supposed by 
many to be the achievement of modern science, was 
taught by Pythagoras five hundred and ninety years 
prior to the Christian era, and was probably derived by 
him from j^Eunophis, an Egyptian priest of On. 

The healing art attained considerable maturity at a 



36 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

very early age. Facts were observed and classified, and 
deductions drawn, remedies were multiplied, experiments 
made, and temples dedicated to ^sculapius. Knowledge 
was accumulated and transmitted, and much that is useful 
in medicine was known before the days of Hippocrates 
or Galen. 

In the fine arts no modern nation has ever been equal 
to Egypt. Music, painting, and sculpture were culti- 
vated among the Egyptians with a success to which no 
subsequent age has ever yet approached. Greece re- 
ceived light from Egypt, and traced her footsteps. In 
government, war, philosophy, poetry, and refinement, she 
has never been surpassed. Do you ask for her law- 
givers? History points to her Solon and Lycurgus. For 
her orators? She pronounces the name of Demosthenes. 
For her warriors? She mentions Leonidas and Xeno- 
phon. For her philosophers? She directs to Pythagoras 
and Socrates. For her arts ? She points to the Coliseuna 
and Parthenon, still rearing their summits in the sun- 
beams. For her poets? She names Homer, and proudly 
challenges the present or the past to mention his equal. 

The human mind, though amply developed both in 
Egypt and Greece, did not take the same direction in 
both. Egypt cultivated the perceptive, Greece the re- 
flective faculties. Egypt surpassed in arts, Greece in 
science. Egypt observed facts, Greece drew deductions. 
The former studied external nature, the latter the inter- 
nal microcosm. The one cultivated the arts that adorn, 
the other those that ennoble mankind. Egypt threw her 
wand upon the pencil and the chisel, and bade the mar- 
ble breathe, and made the canvas speak. Greece threw 
her charm upon the heart, and hushed the passions into 
calm, or whirled them into storm. The one imitated na- 
ture, the other vanquished her. The former arrested the 
current of life in silent admiration, by her combinations 



I 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 37 

of color, form, and sound; the other held the heart 
pulseless by her vivid delineations of intense conception. 

Rome followed Greece, but stopped far short of her. 
The impulse which the human mind had received ap- 
peared to have been in some degree spent before it 
reached the imperial city. Nevertheless, the works of 
ancient Home are among the noblest triumphs of man, 
and her language is the repository of some of the rich- 
est treasures of human thought. Long as literature and 
science are cultivated, or the earth is the abode of man, 
the works of Tribonian, Virgil, Cicero, and cotemporane- 
ous writers, will be subjects of the highest admiration. 
We need no other proof of Roman greatness than Ro- 
man language. It is precisely adapted to convey strong 
thought and intense feeling. We may form a very good 
idea of a nation's intellect by its language. That of 
France is just such as a versatile, volatile people, like 
themselves, would desire — formed for colloquial purposes. 
That of modern Italy seems designed for love songs, the 
only effort for which the emaciated mind of its inhab- 
itants appears to be adapted. The language of old Rome 
is fitted for the most majestic movements of mind. 

Under the influence of luxury and vice, Rome grad- 
ually declined, till at length she was overrun by success- 
ive hordes 'of barbarians, by whom the most valuable 
productions of her art were despoiled, and her land, 
which was as the garden of Eden, became converted into 
a desolate wilderness. 

It is melancholy to behold the empress of the world, 
who had crushed beneath her iron footsteps Carthage, 
Pontus, and Judea, and whose chains, at one time, every 
nation, from Graul to India, were proud to wear, trampled 
beneath the brutal tread of Huns, Goths, and Vandals. 
The reason was apparent. She neglected the education 
of her sons. It was not because she had no gunpowder 



38 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

that she fell. She would have fallen with an armorj in 
every village, and a magazine in every house. Had she 
possessed the spirit of her Caesars, or her Catos, she 
would have buckled on her shield, and her legions would 
have rolled back the tide of invasion, and planted the 
Roman eagle on the invader's soil. 

This brings us to the third period, comprehending 
those times to which posterity has assigned the appel- 
lation of dark ages. During the long period of nearly 
ten centuries, the human mind appeared to have lost 
nearly all its power; and the trophies which it had 
"before won were buried in oblivion. Universal dark- 
ness prevailed. 

The monks were the only individuals who paid atten- 
tion to literature and science ; nor did the.}/ all devote 
themselves to these pursuits — it was only here and there 
that a monk became learned. The mass of civilized 
mind was stereotyped, and appeared incapable of giv- 
ing any other impression than that which the " Holy 
Mother" delineated. The priests spent their time in 
attendins; to the ceremonies of the Church, and the 
Pope and cardinals were, engrossed in managing affairs 
of state. The whole earth appeared to be wrapped in a 
pall of death, and the human race to proceed in one 
great funeral procession of age after age to eternity. 
The prevalence of Popery accounts for the condition 
of the public mind during the dark ages. The grand 
principle on which the Church of Rome stands, is that 
the general intellect shall not be developed. Popery 
and general education are as incompatible as light and 
darkness. 

The last period commences with the revival of letters, 
and extends to the present time. The Reformation and 
the revival of letters may be regarded as intimately con- 
nected, if not in the relation of cause and effect. It is 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 39 

certain that no general revival of learning could have 
taken place without the influence of the Reformation. 
The grand question between the reformers and the Pope 
was this, Shall there be but one or many minds? There 
were many minor points, but this was the grand one. 
The Pope could easily have adjusted the numerous infe- 
rior matters in dispute between Luther and the Chair of 
St. Peter; but he could not yield his pretended right to 
control the world's intellect. He said, ''There shall be 
but one mind on earth; namely, my own." Here Luther 
joined issue, and maintained that there should be as 
many minds as there are men. 

Since the Reformation the progress and diffusion of 
knowledge have been both rapid and uninterrupted. 

The discovery of the art of printing and the mariner's 
compass, the introduction of the Baconian philosophy, 
and the application of steam to the mechanic arts, have 
done much to prepare the way for general education. 
Several important political events have contributed largely 
to the same end. I refer to the American Revolution, 
the French Revolution, and the wars of Napoleon — the 
first resulting in the establishment of free government on 
our own shores, and the two latter in the breaking up of 
long-settled forms of tyranny and ecclesiastical usurpa- 
tion, and all contributing to extend the belief that man- 
kind ought to think for themselves. 

We can but mourn when we contemplate the bloodshed 
of revolutionary France; but may we not conceive that 
even that disastrous event had a powerful influence in 
undermining the foundations of venerable superstition, 
extending liberal principles, and promoting general 
knowledge? 

If we turn our attention to Europe, we shall find that 
a day of general knowledge has already begun. The pa- 
rochial schools of Scotland have Ion"; been admirable. 



40 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

The subject of general education receives much atten- 
tion in England; and although ecclesiastical and political 
institutions present an insuperable barrier to the estab- 
lishment of any efficient system of common schools ade- 
quate to the wants of the British nation^ yet legislative 
and private munificence are sufficient to secure the bless- 
ings of education to the humblest walks of life. 

The common school system is acquiring daily efficiency 
and extension in France. The Citizen King is acquiring 
enduring popularity by elevating the general mind of the 
great nation which he rules, and which has so often been 
fertile in wars and wickedness. There is much to com- 
mend in the spirit which has long prevailed on the sub- 
ject of the diffusion of knowledge in Switzerland, and 
much to admire in the public and private institutions of 
that independent people. In Sweden the most liberal 
views have long been entertained in relation to educa- 
tion. She has a common school, supported at the public 
expense, in every considerable town. The University of 
Upsal has an enviable reputation ; and the general edu- 
cation is a prominent object of consideration with the 
Swedish government. The parochial schools of Den- 
mark are equal to those of Scotland ; and her metropolis, 
Copenhagen, is one of the great centers whence radiate 
the rays of science and civilization over the world. 
Even Catholic Spain and Italy are awake on the subject 
of education. In Russia and Austria common schools and 
seminaries are erected, teachers are educated, and an 
ample course of instruction is pointed out by law. More- 
over, the children are not only provided for, but com- 
pelled to avail themselves of the legal provisions for their 
advantage. 

Of the system of Prussia we need scarcely speak. It 
is the best that was ever devised, and will long be the 
model for all the enlightened nations of earth. Nearly 






GENERAL EDUCATION. 41 

all the German states have imitated the Prussian system, 
and several of them have brought it to the same perfec- 
tion as Prussia herself If we cast our eyes toward Tur- 
key and Egypt, we shall see that even the Sublime Porte 
has caught the general spirit, and transferred it to the 
Pacha, to spread over the land of Sesostris and the Pha- 
raohs, 

In our own country education is becoming general. 
To New England belongs the honor of first providing, 
by law, for popular education. Her- noble example has 
been followed with various degrees of spirit and of wis- 
dom by most of the other states of the Union. 

The General Government has not been an idle specta- 
tor of these movements of the sisters of the confederacy. 
She has assigned to the new states — beside occasional 
donations — the thirty-sixth part of all the lands within 
their chartered limits for the purposes of general educa- 
tion. Indeed, to our country we must look for the origin 
of all those plans of general education which have been 
brought to such perfection in Europe. We believe that 
when the wisest of modern monarchs, Frederick William 
III, ascended the throne of Prussia, New England had a 
common school system matured by many successive years 
of reflection and experience. He saw America free; he 
believed her institutions would prove permanent; he 
knew that freedom was contagious, and that the example 
of America would be followed by the other nations of 
the world unless monarchies were rendered popular. To 
accomplish this object he devised an admirable expedi- 
ent, namely, the education of his people, thus making 
the crown the source of the highest blessings that can 
descend from human governments, and endearing the 
monarch to his subjects. Many crowned heads have 
already perceived his wisdom and imitated his example. 

The throne of an enlightened people is a dangerous seat, 

4 



42 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

yet such is the only kind of people that Europe will soon 
contain; and the question among monarchs is, whether 
thrones shall be abolished or made obedient to the pop- 
ular will. 

It is enough to make America blush to observe what 
despotic governments have accomplished with a system 
borrowed from ourselves. If republics, standing alone, 
can not endure without popular education, how can they 
stand in the light of monarchies which outstrip them in 
virtue and intelligence ? 

Although education is rapidly extending, much re- 
mains to be done before its universal diffusion. Millions 
are in total ignorance. It was the opinion of a late mon- 
arch, that out of ten millions of the adult population of 
a civilized nation, scarce one thousand were well in- 
formed. If we limit our view to our own country, we 
shall find much to be done. In some of the states the 
systems are partial, and in others radically defective. 
The necessity of universal education is obvious to all. 
There are peculiar reasons why education should be gen- 
eral in our oioii country. We need intelligence to bring 
out the treasures of our land — a land which, extending 
from the lakes to the gulf, and from ocean to ocean, and 
embracing almost every A^ariety of soil and climate, offers 
unnumbered valleys and mountains to the hand of cul- 
ture — exhaustless mines and numerous plants and ani- 
mals to the scrutiny of science, and inestimable resour- 
ces to the industry of freemen. We require education 
to discharge our duties as American citizens. All the 
machinery of government is moved by the hand of the 
people. The duties of juror, of soldier, and of states- 
man fall upon the ordinary citizen; nay, the highest 
functions in the cabinet, the forum, and the field must 
be performed by the common citizen, because Columbia 
knows no other. 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 43 

Penn, in his preface to the ''Frame of Government/' 
remarks, '' that which Tiiakes a good constitution must keep 
it; namely, wisdom and virtue — qualities which, because 
they descend not with worldly inheritance, must be care- 
fully propagated by a virtuous education." There is a 
doctrine which teaches that general tranquillity can only 
be obtained by general ignorance, and that therefore 
education should be confined to the few, while the many 
are consigned to degradation and gloom. If there is any 
one that asks a reply to this argument, let him go to the 
history of the past, to the dark regions of barbarism, or 
the bright pages of revelation, to the indignant hearts 
of freemen pulsating around him,toreason, or to that voice 
within him which, though still and small, nevertheless 
speaks as the voice of God. 

Education should be what its name imports. It is 
derived from two words — e and duco, which signify to 
lead out; and it means development. There is a very 
great error prevalent on this subject. Were we to con- 
sult the general opinion of parents, tutors, and pupils, 
we should suppose that education is the very reverse 
of development. When a parent directs his teacher in 
the education of his children, he informs him that he 
wishes them to have so much knowledge communicated, 
say of grammar, arithmetic, Latin, etc. He sends his 
child to scliool as he does to the merchant, to get so 
much, as though knowledge, like cloth, could be measured 
by yardsticks. The schoolmaster generally provides him- 
self with a stock of the salable branches of education, 
and prepares to supply al) orders in his line. He regards 
his scholars as the druggist does his phials. He takes 
their minds one by one, and pours in, pours in, from his 
larger vessel, of the required material, as though it were 
oil, and carefully corks it up, fearing lest the least motion 
should spill the precious article. The parent upon 



44 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

receiving his child acts upon the same principle, and 
examines the child's head to see if it be full. The poor 
child, too, always thinks of education as of a process of 
filling up. He goes into the school-room as he would go 
into prison, expecting to have his mind confined, and 
handled, and filled up, and shaken down. Now the truth 
is, that education is folloiving out nature, instead of con- 
fining and crossing her. It consists in leading out the 
mind. The school-room should be an enchanted spot, 
and the child should enter it as the candidate for the 
prize entered into the Olympic games, or as the Indian 
engages in the gigantic pastimes of the wilderness. It 
is the arena for mental sport and mental struggle, with a 
view to mental development. An ancient teacher, Leu- 
cippus, understood the principle, when he directed the 
picturesof joy and gladness to be hung around his school- 
room. I am aware that much useful knowledge is com- 
municated in the halls of science. There is no branch 
of science which does not contribute its share of valua- 
ble facts. The ordinary branches of English education 
derive their chief value from being available to the 
practical purposes of life; but in r^xerence to most 
branches of knowledge the primary object is the devel- 
opment, discipline, and strength of the intellectual pow- 
ers. This principle will enable us to determine the 
question so much agitated in our own day in relation to 
the necessity of the classics and mathematics. I know 
that the demand of the age is for practical knowledge. 
We are becoming exclusively utilitarian. We cultivate 
a contempt for every thing which has not a practical 
application. The writings of several eminent men iji 
this country and in Europe have contributed largely to 
give this direction to public jentiment. The general 
inquiry among parents is, what will enable my son to 
make money? Under the influence of a Carthaginian 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 45 

avarice the process of reasoning seems to be getting out 
of vogue. There is scarce any promiscuous assembly 
that can listen, for an hour, to a connected chain of 
thought. The only mental operations for which our age 
»eems to be fitted, are arithmetical calculations and the 
memory of facts. It is not surprising that the classics 
and mathematics are sinking into neglect. 

There are reasons why they should be studied inde- 
pendent of their power to train the mind. The latter 
are indispensable to the investigation of important prob- 
lems in the natural sciences; and the former are service- 
able by explaining the general principles of grammar, 
enabling the student to drink the waters of the purest 
fountains of classic literature, uncorrupted by translation, 
and giving him clearness and copiousness of language; 
but the great advantage consists in the exercise of ab- 
straction, attention, and memory. If we overlook all 
minor advantages, and regard the classics and mathemat- 
ics as instruments of mental training merely, and if we 
insist that practical benefits alone should be regarded in 
the education of the young, yet may we show that they 
are important. When the physician bids his dyspeptic 
patient to go to some distant spring, whose waters are 
falsely supposed to be medicated, does he act unwisely? 
What though the invalid obtains no medicine by his 
journey, may he not be benefited? The change of hab- 
its, of air, of scenery, of thought, of diet, and the 
healthful exercise of body, may co-operate to produce a cure 
of his loathsome malady, and confer upon him the high- 
est blessings; namely, a cheerful mind, and a sound and 
vigorous body. Is it affirmed that a man derives no val- 
uable fact from the study of the classics and mathematics? 
For the sake of argument we grant it; but then we de- 
clare that he derives blessings incomparably superior to a 
world of facts ; namely, a strong, active, and vigorous mind. 



46 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

In the ablest argument to which I ever listened against 
these branches of study, the principal reliance was 
placed upon the alleged fact, that students generally 
forget their classical and mathematical acquisitions soon 
after they leave the halls of science. I know that men 
rarely think of Euclid or Virgil when they are engaged 
in the ordinary avocations of life, unless they are engaged 
in professions which require an application of them. 
But what of that? Has the youth derived no benefit 
from his books and diagrams? Shall the man who has 
safely crossed the ocean dry shod, affirm, when he has 
landed, and has no more need of transportation over the 
waves, that ships are of no consequence? The chief 
advantage of books consists in their bearing the soul 
across the gulf which separates ignorance from knowl- 
edge. 

It is impossible for an individual, however negligent 
he may be in relation to his collegiate studies, to deprive 
himself of their advantages. When a man has climbed 
the ladder whose foot is on the ground, and whose sum- 
mit is in the sky, though every round beneath him 
should crumble into dust, he remains in his lofty eleva- 
tion. Learning raises a man into the region of imagina- 
tion, taste, and reason; and though her paths may be 
forgotten, her votary remains the enraptured spectator of 
a world of loveliness. 

Besides the instruction to which we have referred, the 
natural sciences should receive a large share of attention, 
particularly philosophy, chemistry, botany, physiology, 
geology. These sciences are of especial importance to 
western Americans, 

The modern languages are too much neglected in our 
literary institutions of every grade. They are worthy to 
be studied for various reasons, but chiefly because they 
contain much valuable information in every department 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 47 

of science. It must be a source of the highest satisfac- 
tion to the physician to read the works of Bichat, Ma- 
gendie, or Duchadela, in his own tongue, or to the divine 
to peruse the works of the renowned Genevese pastor or 
the amiable and elegant Fenelon, undiluted by trans- 
lation. 

It appears to me that special attention should be given 
to the arts of speaking and writing. In this land, where 
every man is liable to be called to take an active part in 
the political discussions which agitate the country, and 
even to represent freemen in the halls of legislation, it is 
highly important that the student be early taught to 
deliver his sentiments fluently and with effect. AVhen 
this art shall be more generally taught, the counsels of 
wisdom will be less often overwhelmed by the declama- 
tions of imbecility. Writing is no less important than 
speaking. How often has the venerable minister, whose 
heart was holy and whose mind was rich, perished from 
the earth without leaving any thing by which the world 
might be improved after his decease ! I have known the 
physician, whose fame extended from sea to sea, ridiculed 
and pitied, because his composition was so slovenly and 
ungrammatical that it scarcely conveyed the thoughts he 
wished to communicate. Some of the ablest practition- 
ers that ever attended the bedside of the sick have lived 
and died in the western country. Had a Hines or Go- 
forth written the results of his enlarged experience and 
valuable reflections, the record would have blessed the 
world long after the tracing hand "had forgotten its 
cunning." The situation of our western fathers in their 
youth precluded the acquisition of the necessary prelimi- 
nary education, and hence their valuable knowledge was 
limited to a small circle within the generation in which 
they lived, and their names will be forgotten in the gen- 
eration which shall succeed. They may be excused — 



48 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

peace to their ashes I — but if their sons do not bless the 
world with the pen, on them and on their teachers must 
rest an onerous responsibility, 

I will not detail all the sciences which ought to enter 
into a course of instruction; but before I leave the sub- 
ject I will drop a remark in relation to the study of po- 
litical philosophy. Our own Constitution should be 
studied in all colleges, seminaries, and common schools. 
By the study of our Constitution I do not mean the bare 
reading or committing of its articles, but the compre- 
hending of them by tracing them to their origin through 
their development in the history of our country, and in 
the legislation of the government. I am happy to say 
that we have text-books prepared to our hand oii this 
subject, and adapted to every class of scholars. The 
extensive dissemination among the youth of our country 
of sound and ample views of this great instrument would 
do more to save our institutions from destruction than 
any thing that can be devised. 

It is not, however, by a knowledge of books merely 
that a mind can be properly educated. The mere book- 
worm is a useless animal, and, for aught that he does, 
might as well have never lived. He who would have a 
mind properly trained, must acquire a knowledge of men 
and things. He must learn wisdom from books and 
vales, mountains and cataracts. The earth and sea^s 
must be questioned, and the sun, moon, and stars made 
to yield their share of instruction. The child should 
cultivate acquaintance with nature, and be taught to woo 
her as his mistress; and, that he may acquire the indis- 
pensable element of round-about common sense, should 
be allowed to have free collision with his fellows. 

Moreover, the youth should be made to emerge from 
the little circle of self, and to feel that he is an inhabit- 
ant of a deep and beautiful universe, which it is alike 



GENERAL EDUCATION. " 49 

his duty and his privilege to explore; and he should be 
brought up, V2^ from the little domicile of his father, and 
made to realize that he is a member of the great family 
of God, and that it is his duty to prepare himself to 
bless the world and all the future generations of man- 
kind. 

Education should be more than the development of 
the intellect. Man is a compound being, and every 
element of his complex structure requires to be evolved. 
It has been the fatal error of mankind, ever since the 
revival of letters, to regard the youth as a mere intel- 
lectual machine. The wants of the body have been over- 
looked. One of these four results have generally fol- 
lowed : Either the individual has become disgusted with 
the paths that lead to fame, and retired before his frame 
sank beneath his toil; or he has become diseased and 
his life has been imbittered with pain and anguish ; or, 
third, he has descended to a premature grave; or, lastly, 
he has become an idiot. A truant, or a dunce, or one 
whose constitution is as brass, may live under college 
discipline; but woe to the respectful genius who submits 
to college commons and collegiate restraints. 

Go read the history of Genius. It is a history of in- 
firmities which no eye can trace without being moistened 
with tears. Is it reasonable to destroy our usefulness in 
cultivating our minds? Is it right to disregard the laws 
which God has written legibly in the liver and the lungs? 
As well blot out the decalogue as treat with contempt 
the handwriting of God on the visible temple in which 
his image dwells. Moreover, if' man be disposed to 
run the hazard of meeting the frowns of God for the 
violation of his physical laws, and be willing to perish a 
martyr to fame, is it the surest way to attain the enviable 
summit for which ambition pants? 

How often do we see the man of giant powers and 



50 * EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

sanctified feelings, cultivated in the highest degree, sink- 
ing into the grave before he has been enabled to turn 
his noble powers to good account by the performance of 
a single important action ! There is scarce a cemetery 
that does not read unheeded lessons to mankind on the 
folly of such a course. Many a name that is found only 
on the humble headstone of a new-mown grave might 
have been transmitted to posterity embalmed in un de- 
caying glory, had its possessor regarded the fiat of 
Jehovah inscribed in the constitution of his earthly 
tabernacle. • 

Again : from a neglect of the body there often results 
a worse consequence than death itself. The mind is 
influenced by the body. This was known to the ancients, 
and passed into a proverb — mens sana in corpore sano. 
It was known before Rome was founded by one who said 
that much study is a weariness of the flesh. I have seen 
the mighty intellect gradually weakened by unremitting 
toil, till second childishness and mere oblivion succeeded 
Ulyssian wisdom and Homeric sublimity, long ere the 
golden bowl was broken or the silver cord was loosed. 

It is not enough to develop the intellect and the body. 
There are other faculties besides the merely corporeal 
and mental. The moral faculties, above all others, are 
in need of training. The physical organs are the serv- 
ants of the intellectual powers, but both are subjected to 
the moral and higher faculties. In consequence of the 
fall the latter have lost much of their power, while the 
mere animal propensities have acquired preternatural 
momentum. Hence, the highest object of education is 
to develop the conscience and the affections — those ele- 
ments of man's nature by which he bears the image of 
his Creator, and which, if properly cultivated, will qualify 
him for a participation in the happiness of heaven. 

It is astonishing that in this day of reform it should 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 51 

be thought a strange doctrine, that education should 
embrace the culture of the heart. Long since was the 
question settled. It has been so regarded by the great- 
est lights in every age, from the last to that of Aristotle 
Locke, the most distinguished of modern metaphysicians, 
says: "I place virtue as the first and most necessary of 
these endowments which belong to a man," etc. Lord 
Karnes says, "It appears unaccountable that our teachers 
generally have directed their instructions to the head 
with so little attention to the heart." "The end of 
learning," according to the immortal Milton, "is to re- 
pair the ruin of our first parents, by regaining to know 
God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to 
imitate him, to be like him, as we may be the nearest by 
possessing ourselves of true virtue, which, united to the 
heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest per- 
fection." 

Many other illustrious authorities of modern times might 
be cited, but I pass to cite one or two ancient authorities 
Xenophon tells us with approbation that the Persians, 
rather than make their children learned, taught them to 
be virtuous, and instead of filling their heads with fine 
speculations, taught them honesty, and sincerity, and 
resolution, and endeavored to make them wise and val- 
iant, just and temperate. Lycurgus, in the Constitution 
of the Lacaedemonian Commonwealth, took less care about 
the learning than the lives and manners of the children. 
Aristotle surveyed man thoroughly. He was a great 
mind, perhaps the greatest the world has ever produced. 
It delights us to think of him. It makes us feel that we 
belong to a noble race, and that man can hold up his 
head, even when introduced into the presence of super- 
nal beings. The name of Aristotle will be pronounced 
with reverence long as the noblest associations of genius, 
virtue, and morality can reach the human heart. Philip 



52 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

of Macedon, upon the birtli of Alexander^ wrote to Aris- 
totle, saying that he thanked the gods not so much that 
they had given him a son as that they had given him at 
a time when Aristotle might be his instructor. Such 
was the veneration in which he was held by the greatest 
minds of his age. He ruled the empire of mind with 
undisputed sway for nearly fourteen centuries, and even 
now the chief acquisitions of the Spanish scholar consist 
of the logic and philosophy of Aristotle. This giant 
mind lifted the vail which hides eternity from mortal 
vision, and beheld, though dimly, its realities — he sa"n 
an immortal nature in man, and sought to frame his edu- 
cation so as to suit it. 

Who does not feel that there is within him more than 
thought and sensation? Who does not permit his mind 
to go forth to the world to come, and inquire within him, 
how shall I travel up through the unwasting ages before 
me? 

The world will soon be educated. It has been said 
that a similar progress may be traced in the general mind 
to what we observe in the individual. The world was 
once an infant, tossed upon the nurse's arms — it was 
hushed with a lullaby, "pleased with a rattle, tickled 
with a straw," and next she sallied forth to gather flow- 
ers on the lawn, and gambol over the mead, and next she 
could be seen creeping like a snail unwillingly to school; 
but now the nations of the earth give signs that the 
human mind has passed the periods of infancy and juve- 
nescence; that upon it are coming the marks of sobriety 
and maturity, the spirit of inquiry, of thought, of ac- 
tion. The croaker cries that the world is degenera- 
ting. Is it pride, or ambition, or vanity, or ignorance 
which induces me to say that he knows not whereof he 
affirms; that the world, take it altogether, has more of 
majesty in her form, of grace in her mien, of vigor in 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 53 

her footsteps, of fire in lier eye, of passion in her heart, 
of energy in her mind, than she ever had before? True, 
her old garments may cling to her, but she has outgrown 
them ', and if she wear them it is because of her poverty. 
Her old nurse may compel her to rattle her childish play- 
things, but when she does so she feels ashamed — she is 
no longer charmed with the empty sound. 

A spirit has gone forth among the nations which de- 
mands universal education. It comes upon the earth 
like the atmosphere we breathe, enveloping land and sea. 
It binds like the principle that wheels the planets in 
their orbits. Tyrants tremble, thrones bow, armies stand 
still before it. Man will be educated. On this point the 
extremities of the world meet — antipodes feel in unison — 
one hemisphere speaks and the other answers. Man 
may rise against it — avarice may utter its maledictions- — 
superstition may rail — selfishness may exclaim, interested 
nobility condemn; but it comes. The decree has gone 
forth that man shall be enlightened. It will not be re- 
voked. It is the voice of nature — it is the voice of God. 
Vain is resistance — vain the arm of law — vain the scep- 
ter of sovereignty — vain the barriers of caste. They 
will be swept like the dike before the tide when a nation 
is ingulfed, or the rampart before the whirlwind that has 
uprooted the forest. 

If man is to be educated he is to be free. Freedom 
has always kept pace with the progress of education. 
Egypt was once free, at least so far as she was educated. 
She had, even then, many slaves, and so many untutored 
sons. Greece was once free; and why? Was it because 
her soil was fertile, and her valleys and her streams 
lovely, or because the fresh breezes of the ^gean or Io- 
nian seas fanned her? No! Her scenes are as charming 
now as they were then. Greece was once free, but it was 
when the powers of her body and mind were cultivated — 



54 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

when imagination, memory, taste, and feeling — all tliat 
was bright or beautiful, foul or terrific, and magnificent 
or lovely in wondrous, heaven-born, exiled man, enjoyed 
an ample development and a vigorous life. Fix your eye 
upon that colos.sal power issuing from the east, threaten- 
ing to tame the spirit of Greece and reduce her to slavery, 
by inflicting upon her sons a summary and awful ven- 
geance for an insult offered to the scepter of Darius. It 
reaches to the heavens, and casts a shadow upon a hemi- 
sphere. It rocks the earth beneath its tread, and threat- 
ens to crush a nation at every footfall. How can a few 
free cities in Greece resist? Will they not tamely sub- 
mit without a struggle ? Nay. The husband collects his 
family around him, bids his little ones prove worthy of 
their father after he shall have died for his country, 
directs his wife, after the battle, to marry a man who 
shall not dishonor her first husband, and marches to meet 
the foe. The mother calls her son from the field, and, 
suppressing her emotions, sternly says, ^'Take this shield 
and go forth to battle. Bring it back, or be brought 
back upon it." Now turn your eye to the pass of Ther- 
mopylae. See that little band of three hundred Spartans 
resisting, for three successive days, the Persian host of 
five millions; and when at last, attacked rear and Jront, 
they proceed to glorious death, see how they cut down 
the ranks of the enemy as reapers in harvest mow the 
golden grain ! 

Now direct your attention to Salamis — mark the im 
mense fleet of Xerxes blocking up a few Grecian vessel* 
in that beautiful bay, determined to crush them at a 
blow. One thousand Persian vessels float upon the waves, 
and cast a bright reflection upon the waters from theii 
glittering prows. Mark those few Grecian ships sailing 
gracefully down the bay; see! they station themselves 
prow to prow against the barbarians — they commence the 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 55 

battle — they plunge into the sides of the veering foe; 
they seize, they board, they grapple with the enemy body 
to body. And now the fight is over — the armament of 
Xerxes is routed and scattered — the maritime power of 
Persia is broken, and Greece is free. Why this indomi- 
table spirit — this deathless love of freedom? Greece 
was then educated. That was the period when the song 
of her bard was as the song of the nightingale — when the 
voice of her orator was as the voice of thunder, and the 
whole mind of the nation breathed an atmosphere of 
freshness and fragrance. 

Rome was once free — once mistress of the world. 
From Gaul and Britain to Asia's remotest plains, she 
pushed her conquering march, and chained the subjuga- 
ted nations, but she herself was free. Why? Her mind 
was developed and active. Wisdom sat in her councils, 
eloquence lingered on her lips. Her legislation was for 
the race — her literature for all time. Her poetry fell 
upon the soul soft and sweet as kisses from the lips of 
love. Her oratory vibrated upon the breeze as the notes 
of the harp, swept by an angel's hand. 

Trace the history of modern Europe, and you will per- 
ceive that rational liberty has generally kept pace with 
the progress of general education. 

Look at your own free country — the admiration of all 
lands, the glory of the earth. 

Who were those, that, fleeing from persecution in the 
old world, sought an asylum in the wilderness of the new? 
They were the reading, thinking Puritans, who, on their 
landing, laid the broad foundations of colleges, acade- 
mies, and schools. Who first rose against British op- 
pression on our own shores ? Who first raised the stand- 
ard of liberty? whose swords first leaped from their 
scabbards for its defense ? whose hearts first poured forth 
their blood around the soil in which it was planted? 



56 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

Plains of Concord and Lexington, tell us ! Hights of 
Bunker, speak ! Who first kindled the spirit of the Rev- 
olution all over the land, and kept the flames of public 
indi2;nation burnino' till the Revolution was consumma- 
ted? The people who had been reared in temples of sci- 
ence, and who devised and put into execution the first 
system of general education the world ever saw. 

The angel of Liberty presses close upon the heels of 
the angel of Light — and no sooner does the latter blow 
his trumpet than the blast of the former breaks upon the 
breeze. The education of the world will as surely be 
accompanied by its freedom as daylight accompanies the 
sun. Let a man know and feel what are his rights and 
capacities, and he is no longer to be a slave. He will 
govern himself. A still small voice speaks to every 
bosom in the rational creation, bidding it be free — telling 
it to enjoy the rights which Heaven has conferred, and 
to acknowledge no distinctions but such as God has 
ordained. 

I do not say that monarchical governments are unneces- 
sary when the public mind is ignorant. I think the 
world's history shows that efforts to place freedom in 
advance of intelligence have proved utter failures. When 
a nation is untutored, a visible and imposing embodiment 
of law, before which the multitude can tremble and bow, 
may be a useful auxiliary to government; a Church Es- 
tablishment may be proper to raise up advocates of truth; 
a nobility may be requisite to secure an intelligent legis- 
lature; a standing army may be necessary for the national 
defense : but once let a people be educated, and they are 
themselves competent to all these purposes. The child 
needs not the toy when the season of manhood arrives; 
the youth escaped from his minority will dispense with 
the services of his guardian. 

It is said that in proportion as a nation becomes en- 



GENERAL EDUCATION 57 

lightened lier distrust in her government will diminish — 
that she will perceive the beneficial tendencies of gov- 
ernmental regulations — that the monarch will become 
wise with his people, and will correct abuses and study 
public prosperity and peace — that crowns, and scepters, 
and nobles may be made instruments of blessing to com- 
munity. To all this there is one answer : The wise man 
will not commit to another hand rights which he can as 
well exercise himself; or trust to another a duty which 
he can as well perform without extraneous aid. 

The spread of knowledge will but extend evil if it be 
not accompanied with religion. Knowledge is power. It 
is so to the saint and so to the sinner; it is to the devil 
what it is to the angel. In itself it is neither good nor 
evil — a blessing nor a curse; but like the sword, it derives 
its character from the direction which its possessor gives 
it. A sword in the hands of a demon, infernal or incar- 
nate, would be an unmitigated curse; in the hands of an 
angel of light, it would be an undeviating blessing. The 
one would employ it to destroy, the other to save. 

Increase the power of any rational being before he is 
able wisely to employ it, and you increase his sin, and, 
by consequence, his misery. He is active; he will em- 
ploy whatever of capacity he possesses. The more his 
capacity to do, if he do evil, the more his transgression; 
the greater his sin, the greater his misery. A poor Ger- 
man declared he would not educate his family, because 
as soon as his eldest son learned to write he counterfeited 
his father's name. He was resolved that if his children 
were inclined to do evil, their ability should be limited — 
they should be rascals upon a small scale. Experiments 
upon an extensive field in some of the nations of Europe 
have demonstrated that crime, instead of diminishing, 
actually increases with the extension of education, unless 
that education be accompanied with religious training. 



58 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

This is precisely what might be expected. The evils 
•which deluge the world are not to be traced to the intel- 
lect — their fountains are in the bosom. '^ A greater than 
Solomon has said/' from within, out of the heart, proceed 
''evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false wit- 
ness, blasphemies.'^ This is the philosophy of truth — 
the philosophy to which every hour of the world's expe- 
rience adds confirmation — the philosophy of God. 

The heart is the seat of the moving powers. It is to 
the man what the pilot is to the vessel — it gives him his 
direction; the intellectual powers are the mere ma- 
chinery. How vain is the hope of the world's perfection 
by means of its education ! Let knowledge diffuse its rays 
to the ends of the earth — will sensuality, and avarice, 
and ambition, and jealousy, and vanity, and pride, and 
unbelief be destroyed, or even reduced? Nay, they will 
live and act; and act, too, in a broader field, with a 
keener eye, with a deeper wisdom, with a more refined 
art, and work out with more terrific enginery their 
desolating effects. Am I summoned to the ancient 
sages for proofs that education has a controlling influence 
over the passions? To ancient sages let us go. I am 
willing to searcli their caves, and groves, and public ways, 
and private walks, as with a lighted candle. I know that 
the closer the examination the more multiplied the evi- 
dences that my opinion is well founded. They taught 
what they did not practice. Their wisdom served but to 
refine their depravity and conceal its workings. The 
fountains of iniquity were calmer but more profound — 
the streams flowed in narrower but deeper channels. 

There is one apparent exception — the son of Sophro- 
niscus. There is no difiiculty, however, in accounting for 
his superiority in goodness as well as wisdom, by consid- 
ering that the true light enlighteneth every man that 
Cometh into the world. A ray from the eternal throne 






GENERAL EDUCATION. 59 

fell upon his eyeball — he pursued it — and shall we deny- 
that it led him to that Fountain where sin is washed 
away? 

Am I referred to modern examples of distinguished 
greatness unaccompanied with religious feeling? I at- 
tend to the reference, prefacing, however, that we must 
be careful to distinguish between the effects of other 
influences and those of purely intellectual education. 
Lord Bacon will furnish us with an example of splendid 
endowments, united with varied learning. What was 
the influence of his peerless intellect upon his corrupt 
heart? Only to make its workings more refined and 
more destructive. Lord Byron is an example of surpass- 
ing greatness in an another department of intellectual 
exertion. And what effect did his education have upon 
his character and happiness? The poet has expressed 
it. He ^'was a weary, worn, and wretched thing — a 
scorched, and desolate, and blasted soul — a gloomy wil- 
derness of dying thought." It is admitted that litera- 
ture has a tendency to refine the taste, to open purer 
fountains of enjoyment than the senses, to exert a favor- 
able influence upon the habits, to humanize and soften 
the character. But let not these tendencies be trusted 
too far; it may be doubted whether it is not the sur- 
rounding influence of Christianity, and not the intellect- 
ual habits of the educated, or the rank they hold in 
society, that lifts them above the brutal criminalities of 
the lower classes. It is the philosophy of the Bible, that 
each situation in life has its peculiar temptations. " Grive 
me neither poverty nor riches, lest I grow poor and steal, 
and take the name of my Grod in vain; or lest I grow 
rich, and deny thee, and say, who is the Lord." Theft 
and blasphemy are the crimes of poverty, and pride and 
infidelity those of riches. " Who shall say that the heart 
of Byron or of Bacon is less abhorrent in the eyes of 



60 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

God, or less destructive in its influences upon man, 
than that of the poor sensualist, whose excesses are 
within the narrow circle of a few feet? The latter de- 
stroys himself; the former works the eternal undoing of 
millions besides himself. 

You may educate your soul without religion, but you 
will only refine your misery. You may polish your speech 
without grace, but you will only sweeten the food of the 
undying worm. You may render brilliant the flames that 
burn within your bosom, but it will be only to add brill- 
iancy to the conflagrations of earth and hell. Am I 
challenged to a comparison of educated and uneducated 
states? I accept the challenge. Admitting, for argu- 
ment's sake, that some cities of antiquity, where refine- 
ment was found, were free from grosser vices, it may be 
asked, was not their superiority in moral character owing 
to their religion? For though paganism is false, it has a 
substratum of truth, and its influences in restraining the 
multitude are potent. But we challenge Athens, or Cor- 
inth, or Rome, in her attenuated refinement, to escape 
from the charge of criminality, as brutal as disgraced the 
darkest barbarism that ever found a place on earth. 

Does more recent history present greater difficulties to 
our hypothesis? No; we rest the question on an appeal 
to the vices of the higher walks of life, and to the his- 
tory of revolutionary France. Let the world tremble 
when she reflects, that education will enact the scenes 
of such a revolution all over the earth, unless religion 
accompany it. 

Look around you. The world is arming; nations inert 
for ages are arousing their latent energies, bursting their 
bonds, enlisting under gallant leaders, and preparing for 
a struggle such as has never before been witnessed on the 
globe. She is calling the powers of nature to her aid. 
That army must either enter into the service of the 



GENERAL EDUCATION. 61 

prince of darkness, or enlist under the banner of the 
King of kings. 

The Church must determine the world's course. She 
may, by purifying the fountains of instruction, give a 
righteous direction to enlightened intellect; or by neg- 
lecting them, leave infidelity to poison them all, and 
lead out perverted powers to the shock of battle with the 
Lord of hosts. 



62 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS 



^ 



THIS is properly styled a utilitarian age; for the in- 
quiry, ''What profit ?'' meets us every-where. It has 
even entered the temples of learning, and attempted to 
thrust out important studies, because their immediate 
connection with AarcZ 'money profits can not be demon- 
strated. There is one spot, however, into which it has 
not so generally intruded itself — the female academy — 
the last refuge of the fine arts and the fine follies. 
Thither young ladies are too frequently sent merely to 
learn how to dress tastefully, walk gracefully, play upon 
the piano, write French, and make waxen plums and 
silken spiders — all pretty, surely; but why not inquire, 
What profit? But I take my pen in hand, not to utter a 
dissertation on female education, but to insist that young 
ladies be taught chemistry. They will be thereby better 
qualified to superintend domestic afi"airs, guard against 
many accidents to which households are sutject, and, 
perhaps, be instrumental in saving life. We illus- 
trate the last remark by reference merely to toxicology. 
The strong acids, such as the nitric, muriatic, and sul- 
phuric, are virulent poisons, yet frequently used in med- 
icine and the mechanic arts. Suppose a child, in his 
rambles among the neighbors, enter a cabinet-shop and 
find a saucer of aq\La forth — nitric acid — upon the work- 
bench, and in his sport suddenly seize and drink a por- 
tion of it. He is conveyed home in great agony. The 
physician is sent for; but ere he arrives the child is a 



U S E S O F C H E M I S T R Y . 63 

corpse. Now, as the mother presses the cold clay to 
her breast and lips for the last time, how will her 
anguish be aggravated to know that in her medicine- 
chest, or drawer, was some calcined magnesia,* which, 
if timely administered, would have surely saved her 
lovely, perchance her first and only boy. O, what are 
all the bouquets and fine dresses in the world to her, 
compared with such knowledge ! 

Take another case. A husband returning home one 
summer afternoon, desires some acidulous drink. Open- 
ing a cupboard, he sees a small box labeled "salts of 
lemon," and making a solution of this, he drinks it 
freely. Presently he feels distress, sends for his wife, 
and ascertains that he has drunk a solution of oxalic 
acid, which she has procured to take stains from linen. 
The physician is sent for; but the unavoidable delay at- 
tending his arrival is fatal. When he arrives, perhaps 
he sees upon the very table on which the weeping widow 
bows her head, a piece of chalk,f which, if given in 
time, would have certainly prevented any mischief from 
the poison. 

Corrosive sublimate is the article generally used by 
domestics to destroy the vermin which sometimes infest 
our couches. A solution of it is left upon the chamber 
floor in the teacup, when the domestics go down to dine, 
leaving the children up stairs at play : the infant crawls to 
the teacup and drinks. Now, what think you would be 
the mother's joy, if, having studied chemistry, she 
instantly called to recollection the well-ascertained fact, 



"•■'This is the antidote for all the acids named. It forms with them 
innocent neutral salts. Calcined magnesia is better than the carbonate, 
because the carbonate might occasion an unpleasant distension of the 
stomach. If magnesia is not at hand, some other alkali will answer. 

f Chalk is carbonate of lime. Oxalic acid will unite with the lime, and 
make oxalate of lime, an insoluble, and, therefore, inert compound. 



64 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

that there is in the hen's nest* an antidote to this 
poison? She sends for some eggs, and breaking them, 
administers the whites — albumen. Her child recovers, 
and she weeps for joj. Talk not to her of novels. One 
little book of natural science has been worth to her more 
than all the novels in the world. 

Physicians in the country rarely carry scales with them 
to weigh their prescriptions. They administer medicine 
by guess, from a teaspoon or the point of a knife. 
Suppose a common case. A physician in a hurry leaves 
an overdose of tartar emetic — generally the first pre- 
scription used in cases of bilious fever — and pursues his 
way to see another patient ten miles distant. The med- 
icine is duly administered, and the man is poisoned. 
When the case becomes alarming, one messenger is dis- 
patched for the doctor, and another to call in the neigh- 
bors to see the sufferer die. Now, there is in a canister 
in the kitchen cupboard, and on a tree that grows by the 
door, a sure means of saving the sick man from the 
threatened death. A strong decoction of young hyson 
tea, oak bark, or any other astringent vegetable, will 
change tartar emetic into an innocuous compound. 

Vessels of copper often give rise to poisoning. Though 
this metal undergoes but little change in a dry atmos- 
phere, it is rusted if moisture be present, and its surface 
becomes lined with a green substance — carbonate of the 
peroxyd of copper — a poisonous compound. 

It has sometimes happened that a mother has, for 
want of this knowledge, poisoned her family. Sourcrout 
that had been permitted to stand some time in a copper 
vessel, has produced death in a few hours. Cooks some- 



** Corrosive sublimate is a deuto chlorid of mercury. Albumen at- 
tracts one portion of its chlorine, and reduces it to the proto chlorid, 
which is calomel. 



U S E S F C H E M I S T R Y . 65 

times permit pickles to remain in copper vessels, that 
they may acquire a rich green color, which they do by 
absorbing poison.* Families have often been thrown 
into disease by eating such dainties, and may have died, 
in some instances, without suspecting the cause. That 
lady has certainly some reason to congratulate herself 
upon her education, if, under such circumstances, she 
knows that pickles, rendered green by verdigris, are 
poisonous, and that Orfila has proved albumen to be 
the proper antidote to them. 

Lead — often us'ed for drinking vessels and conduits — 
if, when in contact with water, it is exposed to the air, 
yields carbonate of lead — the white lead of the shops. 
It is surprising that the neutral salts in water retard this 
process, and that some salts seem to prevent it entirely : 
hence, the water of Edinburgh may be safely used, 
though kept in leaden cisterns; and the water of the 
Ohio is conveyed to the inhabitants of this city with 
impunity in leaden pipes. Nevertheless, salts of lead 
may be formed under circumstances not unlikely to 
occur. Moreover, the acetate of lead is often used to 
sweeten wine; and the lady acquainted with the affini- 
ties of the metal, and the properties and antidotes of its 
compounds, may have occasion for her information. 
She will be able by means of articles always at hand, 
such as epsom salts or glauber salts, to render the poi- 
sonous salts of lead inert. For the soluble sulphates 
brought in contact with them, will always give rise to 
the formation of the sulphate of lead, which is insoluble, 
and without any pernicious properties. 

Illustrations might be very readily multiplied ; but our 
space forbids. We conclude by saying, that poisons 
always produce secondary effects, which antidotes, how- 



■' Acetic acid, with oxyd of copper, constitutes verdigris. 

6 



66 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ever perfect, do not prevent. In all cases of poisoning, 
therefore, the administration of antidotes should not pre- 
vent the calling of a doctor. 



POISONING. 67 



¥E did not intend to give a dissertation on toxicology 
when we penned our article, ^^Uses of Chemistry/' 
but merely to give illustrations of the importance of 
chemical science. We omitted arsenic, because the anti- 
dote is not so generally at hand as in the cases we men- 
tioned. For a long time no antidote was known; but, 
within a few years, an excellent one has been announced 
by some chemists of Gottingen. It is the hydrated per- 
oxyd of iron, an article which ought to be kept in the 
drug-shops every-where. The process for making it may 
be found in any of the recent works on pharmacy, or 
materia medica.* If copperas — sulphate of iron — which 
has become red by exposure to the air — that is, has be- 
come a persulphate by absorbing oxygen from the atmos- 
phere — can be obtained, the process is easy; namely, 
add water of ammonia and decant; the ammonia will 
unite with the sulphuric acid, and precipitate the per- 
oxyd, which should be kept in a moist state. It is 
amazing that we do not hear of more instances of acci- 
dental death from this virulent poison. Indeed, when 
we consider that it is often used for killing rats, dogs, etc.; 
that it is not unfrequently employed in medicine — the 
'^ fowler's solution" of the physician, and the "tasteless 
ague drop" of the quack, are solutions of arsenic — that 
the preparations used by cancer doctors generally owe 

*See Harrison's Materia Medica, vol i, p. 356. 



68 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

tlieir efl&cacy to this mineral; that it may be mistaken, 
in the form in which it is generally found — that of 
acid — for flour or hair powder, and that its taste is not 
unpleasant, we can scarce refrain from believing that 
many instances of death, from this article, have occurred 
which have been traced to other causes. The material 
of the drug-shops, improperly labeled ^' cobalt," is a 
crude arsenic — probably an oxyd. It resembles very 
closely the sulphureted or crude antimony, frequently 
given to horses to make their coats sleek, and has been 
sold for it by mistake to the destruction of many fine 
horses. The same article is sold as '^Gi-erman Fly Pow- 
der/' to destroy the troublesome insects that infest our 
houses in summer. When so used, it is generally dis- 
solved in sweetened water, and placed in some accessible 
position as if to tempt children to destroy themselves. 
Perhaps, if the article were called by its right name, the 
dangerous and useless practice would be abandoned. 

We might have alluded to a certain aerial poison which 
has caused much destruction to human life, especially in 
this region, where the earth, in many places, seems to be 
saturated with it. Yie refer to carbonic acid, which, 
owing to its greater specific gravity, is generally found in 
excavations, caves, and the lower stratum of the atmos- 
phere. There are many points in which, if a deep exca- 
vation be made, it is filled with this gas in less than 
twenty-four hours: hence, it is proper, before descending 
into deep wells, or shafts, to let down a lighted candle, 
which will be extinguished if the gas be present. The 
question arises, how are we to displace this gas after hav- 
ing ascertained its presence ? There are two ways of 
doing this — absorption and agitation. The first may be 
efi'ected by throwing down water; the second by mechan- 
ical means, such as letting down and drawing up bundles 
of straw, or throwing down burning straw, which, though 



POISONING. 69 

it will not consume the gas, will heat it so as to create an 
upward current. 

Carbonic acid is produced by combustion, respiration, 
and fermentation, processes every-where going on ; and 
it is astonishing that it was not discovered till within a 
few years. The celebrated metaphysician, John Locke, 
when, on a visit to France, he, for the first time, saw a 
bottle of champagne uncorked, immediately started the 
question whether the air emitted was the same as the 
atmosphere. Had he not been devoted to metaphysical 
researches, he would probably have soon discovered the 
difference. It is no less astonishing that, notwithstand- 
ing its wide diffusion, people in general are not even now 
acquainted with its sources and properties. We once 
called upon an intelligent gentleman, who was confined 
on account of an accident, and who complained of symp- 
toms to him altogether unaccountable. He was lying in 
a small, confined chamber, in which his amiable landlady 
had placed, from the best motives, a chafing-dish of burn- 
ing coals, from which his room had become almost insup- 
portably surcharged with poisonous gas. Had he con- 
tinued in the room till morning, and had the combustion 
continued, he would probably have been a corpse. In- 
deed, this is said to be a fashionable mode of committing 
suicide in France. Our readers have heard of the infa- 
mous "Black Hole,'^ of Calcutta, and the famous Grotto 
del Cana, of Italy; and yet, from some cause or other, 
there seems to be an invincible disposition among some 
to scorn instruction, or disregard danger. In many parts 
of our country the bedrooms are small apartments, with- 
out chimneys, on the ground floor, and with but a single 
small window or door. Around these dormitories you 
will find a quantity of flourishing vegetation, sufficient, 
even when the window is opened, almost to exclude fresh 
air. Circumstances better calculated to accumulate car- 



70 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS 

bonic acid could scarce be conceived — a small room, con 
fined air, growing vegetables; for altbougb, during the 
day, vegetation absorbs carbonic acid and emits oxygen, 
during the night the process is reversed. 

It is surprising that the elements of the atmosphere, 
when not confined, retain the same proportions in all 
situations. The chemist can not detect the difference 
between the foul air of the city lane and the pure atmos- 
phere of the distant hill-top. Differences there are, 
inappreciable by our methods of analysis, but not in the 
proportion of the principal elements. Grod has provided 
for consuming, under ordinary circumstances, the sur- 
plus carbonic acid as fast as it is generated, and so 
admirable are his adjustments for this purpose, that the 
hundred thousand fires, and the unnumbered fermenta- 
tions, and the millions of lungs that are constantly at 
work in the crowded city, are unable to render its at- 
mosphere irrespirable, or even to charge it with any 
more than a due proportion of carbonic acid. To our 
minds there is no more beautiful and convincing proof 
of Divine providence. 

But what is to be done in case of sufi"ocation from car- 
bonic acid? Dash cold water upon the patient, and send 
for some person who knows better than I. 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 71 



"you will scarce have placed your feet upon the thresh- 
-^ old of this busy world^ hefore a troop of difficulties 
will encompass you. Enter upon any pursuit whatever, 
you may expect enemies, and competitors, and misfor- 
tunes ; and as many of you will go forth without wealth, 
or friends, or experience, your first efi"orts may be failures. 
Judging by the light of experience, we are induced to 
fear that some of you will abandon your pursuits, and 
take refuge in the hut of obscurity, the works of fancy, 
or the haunts of dissipation. With a view to guard you 
against such a course, I invite your attention to the fol- 
lowing propositions, namely : 

Difficulties do not justify us in surceasing from the 
prosecution of a rational, benevolent, and feasible under- 
taking. 

1. We can not escape difficulty. The air is tainted, 
the soil churlish, the ocean tempest-tossed. Whether 
we are in the field or in the wilderness, on Persian plains 
or Alpine hights, amid equatorial heats, or temperate 
climes, or polar solitudes, we are met by a thousand ob- 
stacles. Earth is cursed, and every-where she puts forth 
her thorn in obedience to her Maker's withering word. 
True, the curse is tempered with the mercy which yields 
unnumbered blessings to the hand of toil; nevertheless, 
it cleaves to all earth's surface, and turns the key upon 
her hidden treasures. We read of cloudless skies, and 
sunny climes, and fields which need naught but the 



72 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

sickle; but who jSnds them? Paradise is always ahead 
of the emigrant. 

Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward ; that 
is, by a general law of nature. Hence we find it in want 
and abundance, in toil and indolence, in indulgence and 
restraint, in infancy, in manhood, and in age. It waits 
on every pleasure, and every path, and every pursuit — it 
dwells within. We can no more escape it than we can 
fly existence. Take a few illustrations. A young man 
resolves to be eminent. Entering the academy, he finds 
many difficulties in algebra, and becoming discouraged 
he gives it up; but has he liberated himself? No, he 
has plunged from great to greater difficulties. How can 
he unlock the vaults of mathematics without algebra, 
their only key? Does he abandon mathematics, another 
difficulty seizes him. How can he become educated 
without a knowledge of the exact sciences? Does he 
relinquish his aim at scholarship? How, then, can he 
carry out his resolution to become eminent? Will he re- 
scind his resolution? Then challenge him to tame the 
restless passions by which it was prompted. Like the 
fabled ships of the ancients, '^ Incidif in Scyllam qui vult 
vitare CharT/bdim" — he who endeavors to avoid Charyb- 
dis is drawn into the jaws of Scylla. How many, be- 
cause of difficulties in their pursuits, become idlers? 
But who on earth has more troubles than the idler? A 
man becomes religious, and enters the path to life; but 
he soon finds that the world opposes, that his passions 
demur, that his secular plans come in conflict with his 
religious efi"orts, that an invisible adversary stands in the 
path to contend every inch of ground with him. He 
retreats. But now his difficulties are ten thousand fold 
greater. He finds that an unseen footstep treads upon 
his wandering heels, that an All-seeing eye surveys his 
inmost soul, that an invisible hand writes his guilt in 



THE C N F L 1 C T S OF LIFE. 73 

characters indelible on all the objects around him. He 
must encounter the stings of conscience, the upbraidings 
of reason, the admonitions of the altar, the prajers 
of Zion, the cross of his dying Christ, the intercession 
of his risen Jesus, the moving, mellowing, subduing 
influences of the divine Spirit, the ten thousand warn- 
ings of a merciful Providence, the unnumbered monitions 
of living, decaying, dying, reviving nature, the very 
sympathies of heaven, yea, even the moving entreaties 
of her compassionate King. The apostate deliberately 
contends with conscience, reason. Providence, truth, Zion, 
men, angels, God; and in addition to all these the ene- 
mies he had before, and without a single auxiliary in 
earth, hell, or heaven ! Verily, he has gained. 

Take another illustration. The Providence of God 
opens a missionary field, and a certain department of 
Zion resolves to occupy it. The missionary departs with 
bounding heart. He lands, surveys the ground, pitches 
his tent, plants his standard, reconnoiters; lays his plans, 
and, under favorable circumstances, commences an attack 
upon the citadel of darkness. Meanwhile, in conse- 
quence of a simoom that sweeps over the commerce of 
the country whence he issued, the Church, being- 
plunged into pecuniary embarrassments, finds it exceed- 
ingly difiicult to sustain her new missionary. Now, sup- 
pose she recall him — I proceed upon the supposition that 
it was manifestly her duty to send him — can she cut the 
cord which binds upon her the obligation to disciple 
all nations ? or can she escape the curses of trans- 
gression ? or will she find the difficulties of disobedience 
less than those of obedience?. Let the trials of duty be 
as great as possible, what are they in comparison with 
those of rebellion? This has already riven heaven, 
blasted earth, and kindled the eternal furnaces of hell. 

Should a planet break away from its orbit, a system 

7 



74 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

would be unsettled, and the universe, from center to 
circumference, might feel the shock. How much supe- 
rior is the moral to the material world ! How far more 
important its laws ! How infinitely more terrific the con- 
sequences of their violation ! 

2. Difficulties invis;orate the soul. I do not mean the 
difficulties of indolence and disobedience, these are with- 
ering curses, but the difficulties of industry, of obedi- 
ence. 

They are conditions essential to strength What gives 
power to the arm of the smith ? The weight of his 
hammer. What gives swiftness to the Indian foot? 
The fleetness of his game. Thus it is with the senses. 
What confers exquisite sensibility upon the blind man's 
ear? The curtain which, by hiding the visible universe 
from his sight, compels him to give intense regard to the 
most delicate vibrations that play upon his tympanum. 
Thus it is with the intellect. Who is the greatest rea- 
soner? He who habitually struggles with the worst dif- 
ficulties that can be mastered by reason. Do you com- 
plain of a feeble intellect? It may be your misfortune, 
but it is more likely to be your fault. Before you charge 
the Almighty with an unequal distribution of gifts, try 
your mind upon some appropriate difficulties. Bear it 
into the field of mathematics, or metaphysics, or logic. 
Bid it struggle, and faint if necessary, and struggle 
again. If disposed to retreat, urge it, goad it. Let it 
rest when weary, bid it walk when it can not run, but 
teach it that it must conquer. If, after this discipline, 
your mind be feeble, you may call your weakness an 
infirmity, and not a fault. Some men have fruitless 
imaginations; but who are they? Those who have 
never led their fancies out. The genial oak planted 
in a dismal cellar, shut out from the light and air of 
heaven, would not grow up and lift its branches to the 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 75 

skies. Plant your imagination in the heavens, and let it 
be subject to the high and holy influences of its pure 
ether, and its silent lights, and it shall manifest vitality, 
and vigor, and upward aspirations. 

The memory, too, is strong, if subjected to proper ex- 
ercise. It will yield no revenue to the soul that does not 
tax it; and just in proportion as it is taxed, will it be 
found to have capacity of production. I will add that it 
is thus with the moral powers. Envy, jealousy, anger, 
those bitter fountains which so often tincture the 
streams of private and domestic joy, deepen in propor- 
tion to the obstacles through which they flow. Avarice 
and ambition, those demons that have desolated the 
globe with war, derive their overwhelming power from 
the difficulties which impede their progress. The daring 
lover testifies that love becomes more wild and resistless 
as great and romantic difficulties rise around him. 
What makes the good Christian? Perpetual trial. He 
who has experienced the severest storms, and has most 
frequently thrown out the Christian's anchor, has the 
strongest hope. Where shall we expect the firmest 
faith? At the gate of St. Peter's? or at the martyr's 
stake? Who is compared to purified silver or gold? 
That Christian around whose soul God hath kindled the 
fires of his furnace, and kept them glowing till it re- 
flected his own image. 

Difficulties give a healthy tone and tendency to the 
powers. As a body in a state of inaction becomes leth- 
argic and diseased, so the intellect, if not kept in vigor- 
ous exercise, becomes enfeebled, and gradually sinks 
under the sway of the passions. Energetic action is 
indispensable to preserve both the body from disease, 
and the soul fiom the dominion of sense. 

3. Difficulties develop resources. To prove this it is 
only necessary to cite the aphorism — necessity is the 



76 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

mother of invention. She levels forests, she rears cities, 
she builds bridges, she prostrates mountains, she lays her 
iron pathway from river to river, and from sea to sea, she 
baiBes the raging elements, and extends her dominion 
from earth to air and ocean, she ascends the heavens, 
and with fearless foot treads round the zodiac. 

Transport the savage from his woods to yon island in 
the sea; show him her crowded harbors, and her metrop- 
olis of thousand spires; point him to her proud trophies, 
and her glorious triumphs in earth and sky; bid him 
mark how she brings the fruits of all the earth to her 
table, and weaves the chain of her authority over every 
latitude. Then, would you describe the secret of all 
that his eye beholds, and his ear hears, tell him that 
Britain resolved to meet the difficulties that lay in her 
path from barbarism to civilization and refinement. 
From this simple resolution sprung her arms and her 
arts, her science and her song. 

I have said that difficulties call forth resources. How 
multiplied might be the illustrations! The Revolution 
created the continental array and the continental Con- 
gress, and made dissevered, discordant, and dependent 
states a united and powerful republic. An inventive 
nation, unless she plan important enterprises, will find her 
arts and powers of but little use. Why does China exert 
so feeble an influence among the nations? Not because 
her population is small — it is one-third the population of 
the globe ; not because they are idle — no men are more 
industrious; not because she has no arts — her manufac- 
tures are unsurpassed; not because she is infertile in ex- 
pedients — she walls her territory to shut out invaders, 
she unites her rivers with artificial channels, she raises 
♦".ities upon her waters, she divides her rocks into ter- 
races, and makes them smile from base to summit with 
fairest fruits and flowers, she bridges her valleys with 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 77 

chains, and, as if disdaining the aid of nature, she rears 
her temples on mountains of her own construction. Is 
the answer found in Providence? Nay. Is learning 
neglected? Not a nation in which it is so much en- 
couraged. Yet should an earthquake sink her beneath 
the waves, what ocean would miss her sails ? what land 
her treasures? what science her contributions? The 
great instruments to which we usually attribute the 
march of civilization, namely, gunpowder, the mariner's 
compass, and the art of printing, have all been known to 
China from remote ages. Although she flashed powder 
from her "fire-pan in the face of Genghis Khan and 
Tamerlane, yet, never plotting extensive conquests, she 
made no important use of the terrific instrument of war. 
Content with navigating along her coasts and inland 
waters, she kept her compass upon the land, and never 
daring to impress the world's mind, she confined her 
types to the stamping of almanacs." 

As with the nation so with the individual. The fierce 
armies of Gaul and Britain gave Caesar his martial skill. 
The snow-clad Alps made Hannibal fertile in expedients, 
resistless in command. Would you be illustrious? 
Plunge into difficulty — cross the Rubicon — bind your soul 
with strong cords of obligation — put on band after band — 
the greater the difficulties, provided they do not paralyze, 
the greater the man. 

4. There is scarce any difficulty that can not be over- 
come by perseverance. Trace any great mind to its cul- 
mination, and you will find that its ascent was slow, and 
by natural laws, and that its difficulties were such only as 
ordinary minds can surmount. Great results, whether 
physical or moral, are not often the off'spring of giant 
powers. Genius is more frequently a curse than a bless- 
ing. Its possessor, relying upon his extraordinary gifts, 
generally falls into habits of indolence, and fails to col- 



78 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

lect the materials wbicli are requisite to useful and mag- 
nificent effort. But there is a something which is sure 
of success; it is the determination which, having en- 
tered upon a career with full conviction that it is right, 
pursues it in calm defiance of all opposition. With such 
a feeling a man can not but be mighty. Toil does not 
weary, pain does not arrest him. Carrying a compass in 
his heart, which always points to one bright star, he 
allows no footstep to be taken which does not tend in 
that direction. Neither the heaving earthquake, nor the 
yawning gulf, nor the burning mountain can terrify him 
from his course; and if the heavens should fall, the 
shattered ruins would strike him on his way to his object. 
Show me the man who has this principle, and I care not 
to measure his blood, nor brains. I ask not his name nor 
his nation — I pronounce that his hand will be felt upon 
his generation, and his mind enstamped upon succeeding 
ages. 

This attribute is God-like. It may be traced through- 
out the universe. It has descended from the skies — it is 
the great charm of angelic natures. It is hardly to be 
contemplated, even in the demon, without admiration. 
It is this which gives to the warrior his crown, and encir- 
cles his brow with a halo that, in the estimation of a 
misjudging world, neither darkness, nor lust, nor blas- 
phemy, nor blood can obscure. The bard of Mantua, to 
whose tomb genius in all ages makes its willing pilgrim- 
age, never presents his hero in a more attractive light, 
than when he represents him, " tot volvere casus/' rolling 
his misfortunes forward, as a river bearing all opposition 
before it. 

I am well satisfied that it is a sure passport to mental 
excellence. Science has no summit too lofty for its 
ascent — literature has no gate too strong for its entrance. 
The graces collect around it, and the laurel comes at its 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 79 

bidding. Talk not of circumstances. Repudiate forever 
that doctrine so paralyzing, so degrading, and yet so gen- 
eral, " Man is the creature of circumstances." Rather 
adopt that other sentiment, more inspiring to yourselves, 
more honorable to your nature, more consonant with 
truth, Man the architect of his own fortune. I grant 
that circumstances have their influence, and that often 
this is not small ; but there are impulses within, to which 
things external are as lava to the volcano. Circum- 
stance are as tools to the artist. Zeuxis would have 
been a painter without canvas; Michael Angelo would 
have been a sculptor without marble; Herschell would 
have been a philosopher without a telescope, and Newton 
would have ascended the skies though no apple had ever 
descended upon his head. One of the most distin- 
guished surgeons of modern times performed nearly all 
the operations of surgery with a razor. West com- 
menced painting in a garret, and plundered the family 
cat for bristles to make his brushes. When Paganini 
once rose to amuse a crowded auditory with his music, 
he found that his violin had been removed, and a coarse 
instrument had been substituted for it. Explaining the 
trick, he said to the audience, "Now I will show you that 
the music is not in my violin, but in meP Then drawing 
his bow, he sent forth sounds sweet as ever entranced 
delighted mortals. Be assured, the world is a coarse in- 
strument at best, and if you would send forth sweet 
sounds from its strings, there must be music in your 
fingers. Fortune may favor, but do not rely upon her — 
do not fear her. Act upon the doctrine of the Grecian 
poet, 

" I seek -what's to be sought — 
I learn what's to be taught — 
I beg the rest of Heav'n." 

Talk not of genius. I grant there are differences in 



80 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

mind, originally, but there is mind enough in every or- 
dinary human skull, if its energies are properly directed, 
to accomplish mighty results. Fear not obstacles. 
What are your difficulties? Poverty? ignorance? ob- 
scurity? Have they not all been overcome by a host 
well known to fame? But perchance you climb untrod- 
den bights. Nevertheless, fear to set down any obstacle 
as insuperable. Look at the achievements of man in the 
natural and moral worlds, and then say whether you dare 
set down any difficulty as insurmountable, or whether you 
are ready to prescribe boundaries to the operations of hu- 
man power. 

Are you destined to maintain the worship of the true 
God amid the darkness of infidelity? Daniel in the den 
of lions, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, in the 
flames of the furnace, and a long line of illustrious 
martyrs, shouting hosannas from the flames, put forth 
their hands from the stake to beckon you onward. Are 
you destined to plant the Gospel in heathen lands — an 
enterprise the most daring and glorious in which mortals 
can engage ? Do you imagine that you can meet a diffi- 
culty which the apostle Paul did not vanquish ? But he 
was an apostle, yea, and the most successful of all the 
apostles. And what was the secret of his success ? Was 
it his learning? The gift of tongues made the other 
apostles his equals in this respect. Was it his elo- 
quence? Doubtless he was eloquent; but Apollos, too, 
was eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures. Was it his 
inspiration? But were not others inspired, also? It 
was his firmness and perseverance. When he preached 
Christ Jesus and him crucified, nothing could drive, or 
divert, or daunt him: ''This one thing I do," etc. 

Are you called to meet bigotry and superstition, armed 
with learning, power, and wealth? See Luther braving 
the thunders of the Vatican, and hear him say, "I would 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 81 

go to Worms were there as many devils there as there 
are tiles on the houses/' and then affirm, if you dare, 
that it is your duty, to succumb to your difficulties. Are 
you destined, which Heaven forbid, to lead an army to 
resist invaders, or advance to conquest? Ask Csesar, 
Hannibal, Pyrrhus, Alexander, what kind of difficulties 
may be overcome by decision of character. Have you 
undertaken to ascend from poverty and obscurity to em- 
inence and wealth? Ask the field or the cabinet, any 
profession whatever, or either house of Congress, whether 
there are any difficulties which will not yield to firmness 
and perseverance, and ten thousand voices shall respond, 
in animating accents. No. 

5. Difficulties are more easily overcome than is gener- 
ally imagined The simple resolution to surmount an 
obstacle reduces it one half. It concentrates the powers 
of the soul. There is much exertion in a retreating 
army; but it is of little avail, for it makes no impression 
upon the foe. It is spent in taking care of the baggage 
and the wounded, gathering up the slain, destroying 
property, lest it should fall into the hands of the enemy, 
preparing the way for escape, and protecting the rear 
from attack. Let that army, however, resolve to stand 
its ground, and, though there may be no more energy 
expended than there was in retreating, how difi'erent is 
the result! Its powers are collected; every hand is 
placed upon a gun; every bayonet is directed against the 
foe ; and every moment works important issues. So a 
defeated, staggering soul may make effort to escape from 
the disgrace of defeat — effort to rise from beneath the 
pressure (?f its own humbling reproaches — effort at plan- 
ning some new enterprise, but it is effort wasted. 

Resolution brings every power to the same point, and 
moves the whole soul forward, like the Grecian phalanx, 
each part supported and supporting, and every step mak- 



82 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ing an opening before it. It dissipates imaginary ter- 
rors. Imagination is a very busy but very humble serv- 
ant of the soul; she obsequiously consults predominant 
inclination, and paints to suit its taste; she is never 
more active than when fear — which is generally a usurper 
in a state of irresolution — sways the scepter over the 
iuner man : hence, difficulties are always magnified when 
viewed in the distance. The inner as well as the outer 
optics are subject to illusions. When, upon some un- 
known coast, we view, through the morning fog, the dis- 
tant cottage, we deem it a castle. Thus the sluggard, 
standing at his door, sees a lion in his way. Though the 
enemy be a hundred miles off, the coward sees him on 
the next hill-top. He only who says, "I can and I will," 
sees difficulties in their true dimensions. How the ter- 
rors of the wilderness retreat before the advancing steps 
of the fearless emigrant ! 0, how I like those words, 
"I can and I will!" They are words of magic; they 
put to flight the hosts of phantoms and hobgoblins 
which fear conjures up around us in moments of hesi- 
tation; they reduce giant enemies to ordinary foes; they 
level the mountains, fill the valleys, and make straight 
paths for the feet. Would you be victors, write them 
upon your banners, and, like the vision of Minerva, 
which made Achilles tremble, they will shake the knees 
of all your enemies. 

Ye mothers, at your cradles teach them to your chil- 
dren, and bid the first pulsations of their little hearts 
beat music to them. These words, "I will not let thee 
go till thou bless me," inspired mortal to struggle with 
immortal powers. Fathers, breathe resolution into your 
sons; then, though you put them unarmed, unfriended, 
and unshod into this wide world, they will see their way 
to wealth and honor. Launch them upon the stormy 
ocean, they will exact a rich revenue from its billows ; 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 83 

exile them to the wilderness^ and they will press milk 
and honey from its rocks. 

Kesolution inspires self-confidence. Before the decla- 
ration of independence, the Continental Congress acted 
with fear and trembling ; but so soon as that instrument 
was adopted, a noble self-confidence inspired that gal- 
lant band of patriots. They found that they had 
emerged from that dependence in which they had been 
reared^ and this perception spread a might and majesty 
over all their thoughts and actions. 

The resolution to pursue the path of duty, regardless 
of enemies or obstacles, begets the conviction that we 
can place reliance on our own souls. Under this con- 
viction, whatever is done is done firmly. Next to a 
sense of the Divine presence, there is nothing so invig- 
orating to the spirit as the consciousness of independ- 
ence. In some respects it is not proper that we should 
be independent. It is wisely ordained that our persons, 
our tongues, our property, should be, to some extent, un- 
der the control of human law; but there is one little ter- 
ritory over which God designs that man should sway an 
exclusive scepter — that territory is his own soul. On 
this no tyrant dare rattle his chains; into this no mon- 
arch can push his bayonets. It is a holy inheritance ; it 
is a celestial soil. 

Unhappy wretch that does not rule in the councils of 
his own mind I He opens the gates of his paradise ; 
he becomes a vassal where he should be a king; instead 
of heading an army he can scarce control a finger. Pitia- 
ble being he who asks his fellow-mortals to legislate for 
him ! What do they know of the soul ! Were they by, 
in the laboratory of heaven, when God struck it off? or 
can they measure its apprehensions or its anguish ? Can 
they see it cling to the cross, or attach itself to the 
throne, or cast anchor within the vail ? Can they lift the 



84 EDUCATION ALESSAYS. 

curtain that hides eternity, and travel up witn it to see 
what will be its wants in un wasting ages? Poor ruined 
soul art thou that embarkest upon the shipwrecked reason 
of the world — -perplexed soul, who must obtain consent of 
his fellow-worms before he acts! To whom shall he go? 
This world is a great Babel; where chaos umpire sits, 

"And, by deciding, worse embroils the fray." 

Such a man resembles a boatman on a mighty river, 
where it divides into a thousand branches. A points to 
one and B to another of the diverging streams, and obey 
whom one pleases, the overwhelming majority is against 
him. Perplexed by the confused cries, every stroke of 
his paddle is feeble. He is a degraded mortal, whomso- 
ever he be, that stoops to ask man, or winds, or waves, or 
mountains, or storms, or lightning whether he may do 
his duty, and weak as he is degraded. Would you be 
unembarrassed? Have but one will; namely, the will 
of Grod. Inquire what is duty, then do it; and, though 
storms may rage around you, all will be calm within. 
From the counsels of your own soul you will come forth, 
as Gabriel, from the light, doing nothing rashly, nothing 
doubtfully, nothing feebly, and before you difficulties will 
sink. 

Under manly resistance difficulties progressively di- 
minish. If, when we set out in life, we fail, we shall 
be likely to do so throughout our career ; but if we con- 
quer in the first onset, we shall probably vanquish in the 
next, and, after a few triumphs, our march will be as that 
of the conqueror. The forty-fourth British regiment, 
having lost their colors by a dastardly delay in bringing 
up the fascines at the battle of New Orleans, and being 
sent to India to regain them, instead of accomplishing 
their object were annihilated by the Affghans. The hero 
who led the American lines to that memorable field, com- 



THE CONFLICTS OP LIFE. 85 

menced his career by a fortunate battle, and terminated 
in a blaze of glory a series of brilliant victories. Sum- 
mon all your energies to the first conflict. As, under re- 
iterated failures, the bold heart sinks, under repeated 
triumphs the timid one rises. Success gives strength to 
the hand, and energy to the head, and courage to the 
heart, and produces the habit of perseverance to success- 
ful issue. Its subject goes to the battle as did the 
(jireek, who, being reminded that he was lame, replied, 
" I propose to fight, not to run." When Bonaparte 
heard that his old guards had surrendered, he said it 
was impossible, because they did not know how. 

Manly resistance subdues the opposition of the world. 
This world is a wicked one ; it loves to crush the op- 
pressed; I know not hoio it is, but I do know that so it 
is. When a man gives signs of failing his friends for- 
sake him, and his enemies come up; and even they who 
before were indiff'erent to his afi'airs, take an interest in 
his downfall. Woe to the man who can not conceal his 
inadequacy to meet his exigences ! Clearchus, in that 
memorable retreat of the ten thousand from Persia, 
though in an enemy's land, and surrounded with millions 
of armed foes, delivered to the king's messengers, invit- 
ing him to sue for peace, that truly Spartan reply, '^Go 
tell the king that it is rather necessary to fight, as we 
have nothing on which to dine." While such was his 
bearing, he marched unhurt through dangerous passes, 
and over unfordable rivers, and was abundantly supplied 
with Persian dainties ; but when he went to parley with 
Tissaphernes, he and the brave men around him fell. 

Whether unfortunate or prosperous, you may expect 
to be opposed. Had you the wisdom of Ulysses, the 
patriotism of Washington, the purity of an angel of 
light, you would be opposed. God incarnate, on an 
errand of redeeming mercy, fought his way to the cross, 



86 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

which he stained with his atoning blood. You may ex- 
pect opposition as long as selfishness and envy rankle in 
the human heart. Sometimes your motives will be mis- 
understood, sometimes maliciously misconstrued. You 
will have opposition from honest motives, and opposition 
from hostile feelings. It will; perchance, come from the 
hand that has gathered your bounty, and issue from that 
heart that should love and bless you. No matter, stand 
firm. If you weep over the ingratitude of those who 
have basely injured you, let no one see your tears. If 
you receive into your bosom the poisoned dagger of a 
false friend, let no murmur escape your lips. Be sure, 
this course will be best. Preserve a steady footstep, and 
march toward your object, and your foes will slink away 
ashamed. Under such a course the very feelings which 
lead to opposition will suggest its withdrawal. When a 
designing enemy sees that a man is not arrested by diffi- 
culty; that obstacles only develop superior energies, he 
will take care not to put any in his way. The very men 
that oppose, when they see you marching onward with 
accelerated footstep, will soon not only surcease their 
opposition, but come around you with obsequious smile, 
and bow and beg to do you homage. 

Your friends will come to your assistance. It is an old 
adage that " fortune helps those who help themselves." 
Certain it is that friends are most inclined to help us 
when they see we least care about their assistance. They 
wish to be assured that their means will be well invested 
before they part with them. The individual of sagacity 
will be glad of an opportunity of aiding a vigorous, man- 
ly youth, because he will be sure of an ample interest for 
his capital; but he who has an estate to bequeath, will 
not be quick to believe that it is his duty to leave it to a 
slothful relative ; he will seek to intrust it to some hand 
which will make it tell upon the interest of the world. 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 87 

The multitude delight to crowd around the man who can 
use them to good advantage. It is said of an ancient 
general that, in consequence of his severity, in time of 
peace, all who could forsook him, but, when danger arose, 
they rushed back again to his standard. His fearless 
step in the hour of trial congregated the multitudes 
around him. The steady determination to encounter dif- 
ficulty without alarm, is, in moments of danger, like the 
trumpet of Gideon, on the mountains of Palestine, which 
instantly gathered Abiezer around him. 

DiflSculty is associated with happiness. The curse 
which doomed man to toil, though in itself a curse, is, 
relatively to fallen man, a perpetual, universal, unmixed 
mercy. Though the seraph, soaring on his wings of fire, 
and triumphing in immortal powers, regards it as a curse; 
though man in Paradise felt it to be such, yet to man de- 
praved, it is a kind angel which saves him from himself, 
his greatest foe. Were it repealed, earth would be a 
thousand fold cursed. Matter and mind would rot; the 
field would be a wilderness ; man would be armed against 
himself, and against his fellow; passion would obliterate 
reason; iniquity would spring out of all the earth; un- 
mitigated wrath would look down from heaven ; hell it- 
self would be anticipated. Wisely has God locked up 
every blessing, and thrown a curtain over every truth, 
that, in turning the key, and lifting the vail, man's 
physical and moral powers might be diverted from their 
downward tendency. 

But exercise not only preserves us, in some degree, 
from wickedness and woe, it brings us positive pleasure. 
The exercise of any of the faculties, within prescribed 
limits, afi"ords enjoyment. As we survey, with the micro- 
scope, the fantastic motions of the animalcula that float 
in the dew-drop, we exclaim. How happy! As we take 
our evening walk in the meadow, and survey the sportive 



§8 EDUCATIONALESSAYS. 

lambS; we cry out, instinctively, What pleasure tliese lit- 
tle creatures enjoy ! We never contrast the slow pace of 
the dam with the buoyant footsteps of the colt, without 
drawing an inference in favor of the happiness of the 
latter. And why ! We form our estimate of the hap- 
piness of inferior animals by their motions. But where 
did we obtain this measure? From our superior natures. 
The activity of our faculties is the measure of enjoy- 
ment, all other things being equal. We may add that 
joy is the richer and the purer, in proportion to the ex- 
cellence of the faculty called into exercise. Does not 
the peasant enjoy more than the brute? the philosopher 
than the peasant? the Christian than the philosopher? 

Go to your congress of nations. See those two cham- 
pion statesmen meet in fierce and final struggle ! A na- 
tion's arguments, a nation's feelings, a nation's interests 
crowd upon each aching head, and press each throbbing 
heart. The world's wit and wisdom crowd the halls, 
and beauty, in the glittering gallery, watches the ap- 
proaching conflict; the multitudes besiege the doors, and 
aisles, and windows, anxious to witness the scene, and 
herald the issue ; the champions rise upon the tem- 
pest of human passions; they raise storm after storm, 
and throw thunderbolt on thunderbolt at each other; 
they soar, wing to wing, into the loftiest regions ; they 
grapple with each other, soul to soul. Then is the pur- 
est, deepest, sweetest rapture, save that which comes 
from heaven ! It were cheap to buy one draught with 
the crown of empire ! 

Difficulties, when overcome, insure honor. What lau- 
rels can be gathered from the field of sham-battle ? No 
enemy, no glory. The brave man scorns the feeble ad- 
versary; the greater the foe, the more noble the victory. 
Rome gave her best honors to Scipio, because he pros- 
trated Hannibal; America honors Washington, because 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 89 

he drove the giant forces of Britain; England awards 
to Wellington her highest praises, because he struck 
down Napoleon, her mightiest foe. Mark the aged Chris- 
tian pilgrim as he rises from some fearful conflict in holy 
triumph. Hark ! Methinks I hear him say, " 0, glorious 
Gospel of the blessed God! Because thou dost task all 
my powers; because thou dost lead me to the arena; be- 
cause thou dost bring me to the mightiest foes — to prin- 
cipalities and powers, leagued for our destruction; to ru- 
lers of darkness, and wicked spirits, panting for our ever- 
lasting death; to the world and the flesh ; to earth and 
to hell, thus making me a spectacle to infernal and heav- 
enly worlds ; to God the Spirit, God the Son, and God 
the Father; therefore will I glory in thee." Go ask the 
blood-washed throng if they would erase one trial from 
their history. Ask David, on yon mount of glory, why 
the angels fold their wings, and drop their harps to 
listen to his story. Would you have an honored life, an 
honored memory, a blessed immortality, shrink not from 
conflict. 

We measure a man's intellect by his achievements; we 
estimate his achievements by their difiiculties. Think 
you that honor can come without difiiculty? Try it. Go 
build baby-houses, join mice to a little wagon, play at 
even and odd, and ride on a long pole, and see what lau- 
rels the world will award you. 

We will give you the crown of empire. Now go, like 
Sardanapalus, wrapping yourself in petticoats, dress wool 
among a flock of women, and see if Honor would not 
stamp his angry foot, and shake his hoary locks, and 
spurn you from his presence. 

Difiiculties give courage. Look at the raw recruit. 
How timid, how fearful of the foe, how willing to avoid 
an engagement! See him on the eve of strife; his imag- 
ination pictures the smoke and din of battle from afar; 



90 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the plain crimsoned with blood; the piercing cries and 
gaping wounds of the dying and the dead. He longs 
for the home of his childhood, the embrace of his 
mother, the quiet of peace. But mark the hardy vet- 
eran by his side, who carries in his body the bullets of 
the foe, and bears upon his face the marks of their 
sabers. He stands firm; he thinks only of the image 
of his country, the punishment of the invader, and the 
laurels of the conqueror, and lies down to rest, longing 
for the reveille that shall wake him to the strife. Be- 
hold yon timid, delicate female ! She trembles at the 
spider; she shudders at the unexpected rap; she faints 
at the firing of the pistol. War breaks out; her hus- 
band draws his sword, and leads his platoon to the can- 
non's mouth. The savages surround her dwelling; the 
sound of the warwhoop wakes the slumbers of midnight, 
and the blood of her first-born flows over her threshold. 
That female is the timid virgin no longer. Guarding the 
cradle of her weeping babes, she learns to fire the rifle, 
and plunge into warrior hearts the sharpened dagger. 
The heart of a Hannibal throbs in her bosom. 

Finally. God knew the difficulties of duty from the 
beginning. Did difficulty justify a surceasing from duty, 
God would have qualified his commands. When, amid 
thunders and lightning, he delivered on the mount that 
trembled the command, '' Thou shalt have none other 
gods before me," did he not see that lion's den, and 
hear that sad decree ? Did he not cast his ej-es to the 
plains of Durah? Did he not see that golden image 
rising threescore cubits? Did he not see that gathering 
host of captains, judges, treasurers, counselors, sheriff's, 
and all the rulers of the provinces, meeting for the dedi- 
cation of the image? Did he not see those three He- 
brews, and that furious monarch, and that furnace heated 
with seven-fold flame to the temperature of a tyrant's 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 91 

wrath ? And yet he did not qualify the high com- 
mand. 

When Jesus, rising from the tomb, paused on his as- 
cent to heaven, and gave his great commission, " Go ye,'' 
etc., did he not know that Peter would die? that Paul 
would be beheaded ? that emperor after emperor would 
kindle his fires, and lead out his Christian victims to the 
flames, or feed them to the beasts? Did he not well 
know that rivers of blood would flow over his sanctuary, 
and that every age to the millennium would witness its 
persecutions? Who says that difliculty should arrest us 
in the work of evangelizing the world ? and yet there 
may be duties as clear as that. 

I would not encourage rash enterprises; I would not 
set will in the place of conscience, or desire in the room 
of reason. I would take into consideration opposing 
tendencies and probable results in forming my views of 
duty. But there may be duties as clearly marked out by 
the Divine providence as by the Divine word. Reason, 
guided by the light of revelation, may satisfy us of duty 
as clearly as if Grod were to speak audibly from heaven. 

I have pointed out the path to success. I can not 
leave you without directing attention to the motives 
which should influence you in determining your pursuit. 
I can not imagine that any of you think so meanly of 
your souls as to enter upon life with the question. What 
shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewithal 
shall we be clothed ? This would be to regard your- 
selves as mere brutes. Some may ask. What will be 
most congenial to my taste, or is most favorable to im- 
provement, or renown, or power, or wealth? I know not 
how to express my profound contempt for worldly honor 
or riches. The world can not often estimate true worth. 
Homer receives honor, but it comes too late even for the 
sepulcher. Milton deserved a temple, but scarce re- 



92 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ceived a tomb. But honor, what is it? A name upon 
the scroll, and which Time, with one dash of his sponge, 
shall soon wipe out. Crucify soul and body for the 
world, and she may mock you in your expiring agonies; 
and will you offer incense at her shrine, and seek her 
favor? Let her honors be sought when her heart is 
purified. Who would seek the applause of hell? Why, 
then, seek the honors of a world kindred to it? You 
are dying, immortal men. What will a world's applause 
be to you in your last agonies? in the resurrection morn- 
ing? in the eternal world? There are unfading laurelsj 
there are eternal histories, but not on earth. In what 
terms shall I express the fathomless degradation of that 
man who merely heaps up the glittering dust of the 
mine — who prostitutes energies that might bless a world 
to the accumulation of dollars and cents? He sinks to 
the level of the ants a soul that might take rank among 
the angels. I am soon to die. I tell you — remember 
what I say — that there is no service which is not infi- 
nitely beneath your immortal powers but the service of 
the living God ; there is no honor worthy to be sought 
but that which comes from heaven; there is no object 
sufficiently great to develop the energies that slumber 
in your bosom, except that for which the Almighty de- 
signed you. 

I want to see you men ; I pant to see you mighty men. 
Fain would I have you move through earth with a tem- 
pest's force; but better harden into marble upon those 
seats, than move with any other object than the good of 
man — the glory of God. 

Pleasure and glory pursue those who least seek them. 
Serve God with a pure heart, and happiness and honor 
shall follow you. Pant you for a foe ? You shall have 
one. There is an enemy to all your species, who hangs 
the earth in black, and fills it with mourning, lamenta- 



THE CONFLICTS OF LIFE. 93 

tion, and woe, and plunges his hatchet in unnumbered 
souls, and kindles around them eternal burnings. En- 
ter the field against him. 

At the close of the first punic war, as Hamilcar, about 
to cross his army into Spain, stood upon the shores of 
Carthage, he was reflecting upon the triumphs of the 
Romans, the rivals of his country. He thought of 
Sicily yielded by a premature despair, of Sardinia inter- 
cepted by fraud, of the stipends maliciously imposed, 
and, above all, of the laurels won from his native shores, 
and his great spirit was stirred within him. In the 
midst of his meditations his little son, nine years old, 
approached him, and, fawning in a childish manner, en- 
treated his father to lead him with the troops into Spain. 
The great parent breathed upon the martial spirit of his 
son, and, leading him to the altar, bade him touch the 
sacrifices, and then swear that, when he became a man, 
he would be the enemy of Rome. That son was Hanni- 
bal. Ye sons of Christendom, come to the altar of our 
God, touch the sacrifices of our Jesus, and swear eternal 
hostility to Satan. 

Do 3'ou ask for exemplars ? I point you to Daniel, to 
Paul, to Luther. Others have provoked the acclamations 
of earth — they have called forth the shouts of heaven. 
Do you demand a magnificent object? The world is be- 
fore you. Balboa, the discoverer of the South Sea, in 
crossing the isthmus which separates the Atlantic from 
the Pacific, ascended a mountain, from which he beheld 
the unknown ocean rolling in all its majesty. Over- 
whelmed by the sight, he fell upon his knees to thank 
Grod for conducting him to so important a discovery. 
When he reached the margin of the sea, he plunged up 
to his middle in its waves, and, with sword and buckler, 
took possession of it in the name of his sovereign, Fer- 
dinand, of Spain. Lay the map of the world before 



94 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

you, plant your foot on Asiatic highlands, or on some 
lofty peak of the Andes. Survey continents, and seas, 
and islands in darkness and captivity, and fall down to 
thank Grod that you stand on an eminence from which 
you see this great sight; then, rising in the majesty of 
faith, and girding on sword and buckler, advance to the 
conquest of the nations in the name of Zion's King. 
There are energies slumbering in the smallest bosom 
among you sufficient to shake the world. 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. 95 






* 



rPHERE are three great commencement days of human 
-*- existence — the day of birth, when we begin to be 
children ; the day of graduation, when we begin to be 
men; and the day of death, when we begin to be devils 
or angels. Each gives rise in the breasts of our relatives 
to conflicting emotions; but on the first joy generally 
predominates, on the second anxiety, on the third hope. 
The period you have just reached is decidedly the most 
critical of life's eras. Although we know nothing of 
you that is unfevorable, we can not divest ourselves 
of solicitude for your welfare. We know men who, 
though they set out in life learned, talented, virtuous as 
you, are outcasts and vagabonds. Your knowledge, your 
wisdom, your virtue, abide a fiery trial — may they pass it 
unscathed ! 

That your knoicledge may endure the test, it should 
be reviewed and extended. Reviews are necessary to 
preserve knowledge. Impressions made upon memory, 
unless frequently repeated, must be deep indeed if they 
be not soon effaced. But mere knowledge, as it does not 
warm the soul, by inflaming the passions, rarely makes 
deep impressions. 

Reviews are necessary to perfect your knowledge. It 
is but an outline, like the sketch of the artist, which has 
but little charm, but which warms into lifelike beauty 



* Address to the graduating class of the Ohio Wesleyan University. 



96 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

under the magic retoucliing of the pencil. It is not only 
an outline, but a rude one. Exceptions must you be 
among students, if you have not slurred over many im- 
portant propositions, while you have given to none an 
attention too earnest to allow a profitable reconsideration. 
Reviews are necessary to render knowledge available. 
Imperfect science, like broken instruments, does but in- 
cumber and confuse. Knowledge affords more pleasure 
as well as profit, in the review than in the original sur- 
vey. The first examination fixes upon the obvious and 
anticipated truths ; the subsequent ones disclose those 
occult connections, correspondences and dependencies, 
which, because unsuspected, possess in a high degree the 
charm of novelty. As nature broadens before the foot- 
steps of advancing knowledge, till every bush becomes a 
universe burning with the living God ; so language opens 
new mysteries to the improving mind, till the very alpha- 
bet suggests the wisdom of the Eternal and the music 
of the spheres. Moreover, as nature has counteracted 
the propensity to indolence, by planting in our breast a 
strong desire of completing our undertakings, the per- 
fecting of our knowledge must afford relief, as well as 
gratification. The path of the student, therefore, if he 
would be happy, must, like that of the just, shine 
brighter and brighter to the perfect day. But a review 
of sciences already acquired is not sufficient — your field 
of knowledge must be extended. You have been brought 
to the gates only of learning, the paths to its glorious sum- 
mits are yet before you; through the avenues of classics 
and metaphysics you may push on to the recesses of 
the human heart; through mathematics to profound 
philosophy; through the rudiments of natural science to 
an acquaintance with nature; through ethics to a knowl- 
edge of God. Up ! up ! then, and onward ever to the 
bights. Indeed you must, if you would not lose ground; 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. 97 

the highway of science has no inns, and bears up no foot- 
steps but those of ascending and descending travelers. 

The propriety of persevering, perfecting, and extend- 
ing our knowledge may not be questioned — perhaps the 
feasibility of it may. When you turn your attention to 
the study of a profession, you will doubtless find the time 
allotted you to prepare for the discharge of its duties 
sufficiently short, and when you shall have commenced 
your practice you will find business and company to claim 
all your time; nevertheless, you may continue your lit- 
erary pursuits. Take no more time for any object than 
is necessary for its accomplishment. Let the time for a 
given labor be fully consumed therein, while the full 
energies of your souls are brought to bear upon it with 
all the requisite advantages — such as silence, books, phys- 
ical comfort. Do every thing by system ; divide the day, 
and assign to each duty its metes and bounds. In a life 
thus regulated the whole community of sciences may 
dwell in harmony, and derive mutual advantages from 
their very neighborhood. As, however, the customs of 
society will not allow you to make such a division with 
exactness, it is necessary that you acquire the habit 
of using fragments of time. Fortunes have been made 
from the shavings of horn. Time is money, and who 
shall duly estimate the value of its clippings ? Cultivate 
the habit of gathering and coining them, and carry about 
with you the facilities for so doing. 

Your luisdom, too, will pass an ordeal. Wisdom is 
that attribute which directs to right words and actions. 
Our expressions afford us an excellent opportunity for ex- 
hibiting its negative part, prudence. 

God having designed us for society, has given us a 
strong desire to communicate our thoughts, desires, and 
purposes; has ordained speech as our chief solace, 
enjoyment, and civilizer; and rendered it so important 

9 



98 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

to our mental organization, that its suspension for any 
considerable period is a cause of imbecility, when it is 
not a consequence of derangement. Important as it may 
be, however, it needs — like all propensions of our fallen 
nature — continual restraint : in the due exertion of 
which we see one of the plainest distinctions between 
the wise and the silly. The fool keeps his mouth, like 
that of the Mississippi, always open, and sometimes not 
content with one outlet for his thoughts, ^'He winketh 
with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth 
with his fingers." Many of his thoughts may be good, 
but they are swallowed up in the flood of his foolishness. 
The wise man keeps the door of his lips, and allows no 
thought to pass out which is not fit for the public eye; 
although he may have much folly, as he does not exliihit 
it, he is not condemned for it. The fool does not gain a 
reputation for folly only, but often for wickedness also; 
as the stream will be like the fountain, he, so long as he 
carries in his bosom a heart deceitful and desperately 
wicked, will fill his mouth with a conversation of the 
same description. Moreover, as every man is prone to 
speak too well of his friends and too ill of his foes, he 
must utter flattery, evil-speaking, and slander; thus in- 
volving himself and all around him in continual diffi- 
culties. St. James says the tongue is a fire, and it is 
only when we consider how great a matter a little fire 
kindleth, that we can account for the eternal burnings 
with which society is consuming. The wise man utter- 
ing only what " is good to the use of edifying, meet to 
minister grace to the hearers," is considered better, as 
well as wiser, than he is; and as he keeps his thoughts 
concerning his neighbors, he gives no off'ense, while, by 
the mere absence of unkind expressions from his tongue, 
he secures general favor. Nor am I sure that the go^-- 
ernment of the tongue does not exert a desirable reflex 



THEP A THTO SUCCESS. 99 

ive influence; thoughts which are not uttered rarely make 
a deep impression; subjects are not wont to recur to the 
mind that deems them contraband; and passions deprived 
of tongues, and limited to inward ravings, prove guests 
so troublesome as to provoke the heart, by its own vis con- 
servatrix, to expel them. I know that Joab smote Abner 
quietli/, and Judas betrayed his Lord with a kiss, but I 
believe such crocodiles rarely appear in human shape. 
Hence, as a general rule, he who can bridle his tongue, 
can as easily govern his whole body, as the helmsman 
can turn the ship driven by the wind. I would not be 
thought to recommend an unsocial exclusiveness, a uni- 
form gravity, or a forbidding taciturnity, nor, were I 
capable, without the aid of a false religion, of leading 
you into extremes so unnatural. I would merely guard 
against the opposites, from which we can not be pre- 
served but by positive and persevering effort. Under 
that sportive play of fancy and genial excitement of gen- 
erous feeling called forth by the social circle, and de- 
signed at once to recruit the energies of exhausted 
intellect, and strengthen the ties which bind men to 
each other, the ivisest are apt to relax too much the reins 
of the tongue; an(f it is remarkable how small a dead fly 
of folly will defile the precious ointment of a reputation 
for wisdom. The world never forms her opinion of a 
man by striking a balanco between his wise and silly 
sayings; the former may constitute a large aggregate and 
the latter a small one ; yet the good shall not only be 
made to cancel the evil, but to leave a large surplus. 
Nor does folly destroy friendship with less difficulty than 
it does reputation; how often do we gain a jest but to 
lose a friend, point a pun but to pierce a bleeding heart, 
or sow "to the wind but to reap the whirlwind! 

Loquacity is not to be condemned indiscriminatel3\ 
When a man is incapable of any business of his own, he 



100 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

may regulate the business of every body else ; if he has 
no fiiults or troubles at home, he may turn his attention 
to those of his 7ieighbors, and if he can receive no further 
information, he may as well nail up his ears with the 
ceaseless hammering of his tongue. Habit is second 
nature, and I would not lightly censure the unruly mem- 
ber, that having run for fifty years, can only be stopped 
by a surgical operation or the hand of Omnipotence, If 
a man have but few ideas, and those very small, he may, 
like the huckster-woman with her paltry pennies, lay 
them all out every night, and turn them every morningj 
and although he will find that in the world of mind the 
laws of trade are reversed, yet we can forgive him. Lo- 
quacity is less injurious to some than others. There is a 
man who like the spider having crept into an unfre- 
quented corner, hath no higher ambition than to catch 
enough of time's flies to supply his organs of digestion ; 
Jie may explain the whole web of his plan, for who cares 
to brush it away; but if one undertake enterprises of 
great moment, he had better tie the little traitor that 
plies between his lips. Silence is the great auxiliary 
of ambition ; it is said that geese can cross mount- 
ains if they carry stones in their mdhths, and if a man 
would gain in safety the summits of fame, he must not 
cackle as he passes the nests of her eagles. 

Locjuacity disqualifies for solemn duties; from lips that 
utter nonsense we do not patiently hear the praises of 
God; the tattler is not wanted at the pillow of the dying; 
the prater is shut out from the council chambers of 
rulers. Well might the pious monarch of Israel resolve 
to keep his tongue while the wicked were before him. 
Nor does prating merely bring impotence of good; one 
idle sentence may recast amiss a fellow-mortal's' mind. 
One vain word may start a fiery train of thought that 
shall flow forever. Henv;e, in the multitude of words 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. 101 

there wanteth not sin that may inflame Him, who, in cer- 
tain relations, is consuming fire. I do not say that there 
are no occasions when we may speak of the faults or sins 
of others. I would have the innocent protected and 
public justice enforced. But why need we utter the 
silly, the needless, or the evil — blasphemy and slander 
I leave to the lashes of the sheriff and the devil. The 
excellences and virtues of men, the triumphs of science 
and art, the wonders of creation and providence, the 
glories of God and of grace, are enough to afford relaxa- 
tion without sin, joy without jesting, and excitement 
without foolishness or malice. How is it in heaven? 
So it may be on earth! ^Tis slander even upon depraved 
human nature to say that its mouth must necessarily be 
like that of the volcano, filled with smoke or flame, or 
nothing. Unbaptized philosophy were suflicient to re- 
strain the tongue — and what of Christian? Who would 
tune his tongue to discord, when he may harmonize it to 
heavenly harps ? who fill his mouth with poison, when he 
may sweeten it with honey? who darken his sayings with 
the smoke of the pit, when he may render them lumin- 
ous with the light of glory ? 

Since of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak- 
eth, if we keep the door of the lips we must keep the 
door of the mind; we must therefore make a judicious 
selection of company and books. The serious, the wise, 
and the honorable must be on their guard against the 
trifling, the silly, and the slanderer. The uncorrupted 
must not trust to their present abhorrence of corrupters; 
since the latter like the siren can sing sweetly, the for- 
mer like Ulysses must have wax for the ears. A bad 
choice of company is generally the first step to ruin, and 
the young man of genius and learning is peculiarly ex- 
posed; he is generally courted by the gay and the vain; 
and is often induced by the feeling which led Caesar to 



102 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

say that he would rather be first in the Alpine village 
than second in the imperial city, to squat in the center 
of the noisy pool and become himself a croaker. 

Books are indispensable, for instruction, amusement, 
the formation of style, and the supply of mental stimu- 
lus; they must, however, be selected with caution. The 
press by the power of steam is wheeling off cart-loads 
every moment, yet the world, like the grave in a pesti- 
lence, stands with its mouth wide open, and cries not it 
is enough. That this mass is all to be rejected t'were 
madness to affirm; much of the periodical liteiature 
of the day, and many of its books, are rich and in- 
structive ; but the precious must be separated from the 
vile, and the greater the preponderance of the latter over 
the former, the more difficult the task. A few hints only 
will be given. Old works are better than new. To this 
remark there are exceptions, confined however almost ex- 
clusively to the department of instructive books, nor 
extending equally through this, but limited chiefly to 
the bureau of natural science, in which the career of 
discovery being rapid and brilliant, the presumption is in 
favor of the latest author. For most of the legitimate pur- 
poses of reading give me old writers, such as, for amuse- 
ment, Addison; for mental stimulus, 31ilton ; and for 
models of manly style, the ancient classics. Old authors 
have a great negative advantage. Men like monkeys are 
fond of pranks, and every age has its bewildering fancies 
and Utopian schemes; the present abounds with model 
reformers, and ''poor man's plasters." That change is 
not the law of our being, and progress our high destiny, 
I by no means assert, but I do aver that the former 
is frequently from bad to worse, and that the latter is 
not to be secured by new social plans, and novel moral 
principles, but by a steady improvement of old organiza- 
tions, through a faithful application of old principles 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. 103 

The laws of nature and of the decalogue are eternal; but 
so bewitching are the reasonings of that enthusiast who 
takes the universe under his management, that they are 
pretty sure to take the careless reader captive, and even 
make him hug his chains, till liberated by a destructive 
upshot. The works which contained the follies of former 
ages have nearly all gone down to oblivion. True, those 
which survive, like all things human, bear marks of 
weakness; but these fancies are not like the irjriis /atmis, 
near enough to mislead our feet, but like the aurora 
borealis, distant enough to be contemplated with wonder 
and philosophical delight. Old writers, like the bottles 
of old doctors, generally contain muUiim in jparvo; but 
many of the mental quacks of our day compose accord- 
ing to the following receipt : 

Take of -words one hogshead, 

Of understanding one drop, 

Of human depravity and coloring matter a sufficient quantity, 

Mix and filter through green or yellow paper. 

And although they often get certificates of the clergy, 
on whom they practice gratuitously, it is perfectly safe to 
let their ''eye waters'^ alone. The contempt I have for 
the novels of the times is not indiscriminate. The pages 
of Sir Walter I doubt not are enchanting, although I 
have never felt their power; but I have yet to learn who 
has become wiser or better by their perusal, while I sup- 
pose that their tendency is the reverse of mental dis- 
cipline; to relax the energies, intoxicate the reason, and 
fill the fancy with dreams of rapture or of anguish. It 
may be asked how I know their efi"ects, never having felt 
them? just as I know the properties of arsenic without 
ever having tasted it. What need we of the literature 
of a superficial and hurried age, when we have at com- 
mand the works which Greece, Rome, and England, 
elaborated respectively, in the Homeric, the Augustan, 



104 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

and Elizabethan periods — above all, the oldest of all 
writings, which blending philosophy and poetry in union, 
and affording mingled instruction and delight in forms 
ever varying with ever-increasing charms, gleams at every 
reperusal with new glimpses of the mind of God. But 
your experience, I suppose, enables you to say in ref- 
erence to this subject, "No man having drunk old 
wine straightway desireth new, for he saith the old is 
better." 

Books of instruction are preferable to those of mere 
amusement. The latter have their use; but as in gen- 
eral our natural indolence prevents us from overtasking 
the mind, and our necessary intercourse with society, and 
attention to passing events, afford enough of useful mirth, 
as well as salutary woe, they are rarely indispensable; and 
as they tend to form a habit of careless reading, create a 
distaste for more important productions, and a disinclina- 
tion for protracted thought, unless they are needed for 
relaxation, they are generally injurious. 

Books of nature are preferable to books of men. The 
latter are important, not to say indispensable. They are 
the key to the former, which are closed by a lock that 
none but transcendent genius can pick; but to confine 
ourselves to their study is to spend life in a child- 
ish turning of a shining instrument. The mineralogist 
must take his hammer to the rock, the botanist must 
walk afield, the anatomist must bend over the cadaver, 
the metaphysician over the soul, the painter and the poet 
that would be original must muse upon nature's green, 
and feel her freshness. 

Reflection is more important than reading; as in the 
physical so in the moral world, industry must be incorpo- 
rated with our treasures to give them value. Reflection 
is the mint which selects, refines, classifies, appropriates, 
and stamps our knowledge, and fills the mouth with golden 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. 105 

words — witliout it knowledge is rubbishy and study a wea- 
riness of the flesh. 

If the padlock is placed upon the mind by a proper 
selection of books and company, the lips will be easily 
regulated. But wisdom must be developed in action as 
well as words. The walking encyclopedia may be a vaga- 
bondj the orator a drunkard, and the poet, who soars into 
heaven with his melody, may be a curse to earth by his 
crimes. Wise conduct requires deliberation. This is 
opposed to three errors — inconsideration, contempt of 
advice, and partial views of our relations. 

1. Inconsideration. Some men act from impulse rather 
than reason. They think indeed, but their thoughts are 
limited to narrow bounds, and they seize without hesi- 
tancy, to enjoy without limit, the present pleasure, for- 
getful alike of the future and the past; they are worse 
off than the brutes, who, to a certain extent, are guided 
and restrained by instinct. The swine when satiated 
lies down to rest, not so the glutton ; the dog turns from 
that which is hurtful, not so the drunkard; the ant pro- 
videth her meat in summer, but the idler folds his arms 
in slumber till want, like an armed man, overtakes him; 
the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, 
but the rake, having no instinct and using no reason, 
knoweth neither; he eats to loathing, and drinks to 
dregs, enjoys to idiocy, and laughs to madness; he lulls 
his desires but wakes his remorse, and chars his body but 
to light up a furnace in his soul. He has godlike intel- 
lect, but he sells it for a fool's laugh; perchance he has 
high and generous impulses, and would rise at midnight 
to divide his last loaf with the beggar; but because he 
will not consider, he followeth flattering lips as an ox 
goeth to the slaughter, and drinks wine with the hostess 
who lays her guest in the depths of hell; when admon- 
ished he confesses perchance, but soothes himself with 



106 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the supposition that he injures no one but himself. Alas ! 
in the great day he will find that he had no right to sell 
his brains for a mess of pottage, or to turn his heart into 
a goblet, and no power to fall into the pit without drag- 
ging tormentors with him. 

2. Contempt of counsel. There is a man who, with a 
comfortable state of consciousness, says within himself, 

" I am sir Oracle, 
When I ope my lips let no dog bark." 

He forgets that there is a diversity among the gifts of 
God, and safety in the multitude of counselors — that 
Newton could learn from a goat-herd, and C^sar from a 
raw recruit. Should one like Themistocles offer him 
counsel, he, like Eurybiades, would present a club. 
Though Wisdom build her house, and hew her pillars, 
and kill her beasts, and mingle her wine, and furnish her 
table, and send forth her maidens, he turns not to her 
temple. But though his ears are like those of adders, 
and his eyes like those of moles, his tongue is loose, and 
thinking that wisdom will die with him, he is impatient 
to utter oracles — imagining that he is born like the queen 
bee, to be obeyed by drudges and courted by drones, he 
is unwilling that men should either think or act till he 
gives the signal. Plis fault is not that he does not con- 
sider — he generally considers, sometimes long and well — 
but that he aims at what transcendent genius can not 
reach, independence of counsel: he will find that the 
laws of nature, of Providence, of man, are not framed 
for unadvised action; that "pride goeth before destruc- 
tion, and a haughty spirit before a fall.'' 

3. Partial views. Before we enter upon important 
action we must consider the bearing it may have upon 
the interests of our fellow-men. God having intimately 
interwoven our interests with those of society, no act can 
be deemed wise that is dictated by selfishness Some 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. ^ 107 

men seek their own welfare in violation of tlie rights of 
others; these maybe left to the law; the greater number 
seek their interest in disregard of the claims of others. 
There is one who determines to be rich; he considers the 
things of others only with a view to get them. He is a 
prudent man; he reflects, takes counsel; he is kind, 
wishing others no harm, merely desiring to profit by their 
necessities. The robber, like the lion, goes to destroy; 
he, like the vulture, follows only to feed upon the car- 
casses. He may have so great cunning and sagacity that 
his name may suggest the passage of Scripture, ''go tell 
that fox,'' and if he belonged to a community of brutes 
he might rank high. Yet such are the laws of human 
society, that although a miser succeed for awhile, he will 
find that for a lifetime, or any considerable portion thereof, 
he will miss his object by too hot a pursuit, and verify 
the declaration, that " there is that withholdeth more 
than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty;" or that he will 
shipwreck character or happiness in his success, and 
prove that ''they that will be rich fall into temptation 
and a snarcJ' The love of money for its own sake, or 
our own sake, so far from being a fountain of all good, is 
the root of all evil. Voltaire said, "The English people 
are like their butts of beer, froth at the top, dregs at the 
bottom, and in the middle excellent,'' a remark not lim- 
ited in its application to Britannia — and though an infi- 
del, yet a pertinent commentary on Agur's prayer. 

The ambitious warrior seeks for fame; he is very cau- 
tious and circumspect, willing to hear and ready to com- 
municate. He assembles around him the most judicious 
advisers, submits his plans for their examination, listens 
to every suggestion, is willing to review the ground of all 
his opinions, and abandons every untenable position; but 
his deliberations respect his own success only. In his 
march he desolates fields, burns villages, tears down tem 



108^ EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



• 



pies, and fires througli crowded streets; he sees, without 
compunction, the blood upon his garments, and hears, 
without remorse, the wild wail of widows, and loud cries 
of orphans, looking for their blood-stained dead. Yet 
may be he is kind, forgiving, tender-hearted, desiring to 
do no body harm; he only determines to do himself good, 
with the cannon. He may receive his reward — the plau- 
dits of fools, the contempt of wise men, the admiration 
of the noisy present, the scorn of the calm future, the 
honors and emoluments of office, the reproaches of reason 
and of conscience; but is he wise? 

Yonder is a statesman, thinking only on his own eleva- 
tion — ready to praise a friend in the morning, or curse 
him in the evening; to shout for democracy in the street, 
or wheedle for federalism in the cabinet, to hurra for 
universal emancipation at the north, and vote perpetual 
slavery at the south ; to allay local prejudices by unconsti- 
tutional largesses, or inflame national passions by the 
torch of war. He lays all his plans regardless of every 
body but himself. What cares he, if he empty a land 
of peace, and purity, and blessedness, and fill it with 
confusion, and blasphemy, and woe — so he sway the 
scepter. And yet he pretends to be a philanthropist; 
he can deliver temperance speeches, and subscribe for 
clergymen, and preside at Sabbath conventions, and even 
''visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions.'' 
Out, you villain; despite your cries of "0, the dear peo- 
ple !" the crowd you despise can see behind your night-cap. 

Would man be wise, he must be benevolent7 in perse- 
cution, like the tree which when wounded pours out 
balm; in prosperity, like the sea, which throws its arms 
around all lands; and in the hour of our country's ex- 
tremity, like the world's Kedeemer, ready to bleed. Thus 
only can you secure your own interests — 'tis the law writ- 
ten in the heavens — inscribed upon the earth. 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. 109 

True wisdom implies still more comprehensive views. 
We must deliberate upon all the interests of the soul. 
You subordinate the appetites to self-love — 'tis well. 
You subject self-love to social feeling — 'tis better; weigh- 
ing the claims of each impulse in the balance of reason, 
you will subject all to conscience. We must weigh the 
concerns of the future world, as well as of the present. 
If he is a fool who barters the interests of a life for the 
pleasures of a moment, infinitely more so he who jeop- 
ards the interests of eternity for the enjoyments of time. 
We must deliberate upon the obligations arising from all 
our relations, giving to each its due importance. 'Tis not 
enough to live continently, do justice, and love mercy. 
There is a being whose claims absorb those of every 
other, and that man has not learned the alphabet of wis- 
dom who does not walk humbly with God. Nor is this 
duty in the least incompatible with others. You may be 
like the earth, which, though she turns upon her center, 
and feeds her own family, moves steadily through the 
heavens, bearing all her children upon her breast. 

But your virtue will be tried as well as your wisdom. 
Men may be wise in their own estimation, and in that of 
the world, and yet not virtuous. Virtue is of the inten- 
tion, and is best secured by correct views of God, and a 
sense of his constant presence. Who would sin while 
looking in the eye of the whole heavenly hierarchy? 
But there is one in whose sight the heavens are not clean, 
and who chargeth his angels with folly, and he is not far 
from every one of us. Educate your mind up to the 
idea of the revealed God. This is the mountain thought 
in the universe of mind within whose shade all virtue 
dwells. True, if viewed from the basis of Sinai it is a 
mountain of fire^ smoking, shaking, thundering, consum- 
ing; yet, when surveyed from Calvary it is arrayed in 
attractive glories, awing, mellowing, subduing, sanctifying. 



110 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

It is time I relieved your patience. In conclusion. 
To you it is given to know. Enjoy the privilege; that 
you may, be humble, accompany truth whatever be her 
course — be firm, not fearful, when she bears you through 
the storm. It is a beautiful fiction of the ancients, that 
Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus, sailed 
the length of the great ocean in an earthen pitcher. 
Thus truth may ride the waves of the world in a frail 
bark; but that bark carries a divinity. 

To you it is given to think. Exercise the power pa- 
tiently, strongly. And let us not suppose that because 
the world is full of books, we can attain no original 
thought. Every man has peculiar genius, and the uni- 
verse is perpetually unfolding new lessons. As infinite 
power energizes in infinite space, its demonstrations will 
fill eternity with fresh and glorious wonders, so that the 
oldest, tallest son of light will ever find an unpierced 
nebula of thought before his strong-winged soul. But 
think with awe, as in the presence of Him to whom the 
darkened alike with the illuminated universe is a mirror, 
catching and recording the faintest breathings of the 
soul, to be daguerreotyped in the light of earth's final 
fires. 

To you it is given to speak — stupendous power. You 
are amazed at the '^ force and flexibility of the elephant's 
trunk, which can pick up a pin, or rend an oak;" but 
what is this to the tongue which can talk to the passing 
moments, or lift up a voice to eternity! You stand 
aghast at the roar of the lion, which makes the beasts of 
the forest tremble like timorous men — nothing to the 
tongue, which, summoning the mob, can turn timorous 
men into infuriated tigers. You shudder at the earth- 
quake spreading its jaws for a nation — nothing to the 
tongue, which can open hell by its blasphemy, or cleave 
the heavens by its prayer. And this dreadful responsi- 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. Ill 

bility is committed to you, with tlie condition that its 
simplest as well as its sublimest movements shall be tele- 
graphed by the electricity of God's omnipotence on the 
docket of the last judgment. 

To you it is given to act. Should a giant, able, like 
Hercules, to rid earth of its monsters, ascending a mount- 
ain, and raising his calm head above the forest, rest his 
elbows on the tops of some of its tall oaks, to spend his 
time in gazing upon the sun, when he should be crushing 
the lions that roar and the hydras that hiss at his feet, 
with what indignation should we regard him? More 
worthy of scorn the gifint mind that spends life in mus- 
ing, when a world invites and a God commands to action. 
But you iclll act, and that too under strong incentives. 
The age is one of activity; pushing forward the arts and 
sciences, carrying knowledge down to lower levels, and 
scattering the seeds of civilization and religion beside all 
waters, sending out on voyages of discovery to remotest 
points in every direction, and at once rousing the mind 
of the world into ominous agitation and nerving its arm 
for deeds of daring. You will catch its spirit. 

The age is one of change. An all-comprehensive 
moral whirlwind is moving upon the earth, and shaking 
all her powers — its louder and louder bellowings will 
pierce your ears and make you run to and fro. 

'Tis a critical period. The foot-marks of God are upon 
the sea, and the voice of God is in the storm. You may 
trace the one and hear the other, and cry ''here am I." 

'Tis an age of unprecedented facilities — of thunder and 
lightning powers. 'Tis not absolutely necessary that you 
go to Africa, stretching her chained and bloody hands to 
you, or to Asia, groaning from beneath her hideous idols, 
or to the islands of the sea, consuming in their sinful 
shades. Providence hath planted magazines under every 
prison door, and under every Juggernaut, and under 



112 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

every burning forest of iniquity, and hath brought the 
train almost to our very doors. We have only to light a 
match to move a mountain.' Martyrs, and prophets, and 
patriarchs, and apostles, methinks, would gladly leave 
their mansions of rest to take your places upon these 
planks. 

You will act with fearful energies — which I would have 
you tax to the utmost. Let others sing the couplet, 

" Let me be little and unknown, 
Loved and prized by God alone." 

The lines are incongruous. Did God ever love the 
soul that wished to be "little a^d unknown?" He is 
infinitely lovely, and must love his creatures in proportion 
as they resemble himself, the boundless ocean of love 
ever flowing in the channels of infinite power and wisdom 
over the universe. Think ye, does the angel hide be- 
neath Jehovah's footstool? Rather does he flap an im- 
patient wing of fire, as he cries in waiting before the 
throne, '^I delight to do thy will, God!" Is he 
ashamed of his message or his Maker? No. He blows 
his halleluiah through a trumpet, and whether he fly 
through the earth with the everlasting Gospel, or stand 
one foot on sea and one on land, to swear that time shall 
be no longer, he makes himself known and felt. 

But why exhort you to put forth your energies ? They 
can not slumber. As you go through the earth you will 
smite the friends or the foes of God and man, and every 
stroke will react upon yourselves, and urging you on to 
the world of spirits, make you fiercer devils or stronger 
angels, world without end. 

Look out — there is an enemy; sin, which has filled the 
earth with groans, and hell with flames. He is abroad 
still, and in the forms of ignorance, intemperance, infi- 
delity, and slavery, is crushing human hearts by thou- 
sands at a footfall. On him turn your arms. Fain wouM 



THE PATH TO SUCCESS. 113 

I call you this day to God's altar, and make you swear, as 
the child Hannibal to Hamilcar, that you would be the 
eternal foe of this enemy of mine and yours. 

But who is sufficient for these things? On the borders 
of this world there is a place which no eye seeth but that 
of God. Seek that place, and, on the knee of faith, 
become ^^ strong in the Lord, and in the power of his 
might.'' Then, though you have to adopt the language 
of Christ, and say, ''The foxes have holes and the birds 
of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where 
to lay his head," you will live useful and happy, and 
though you die on a cross, you will wake to joy when the 
heavens be no more. 

I have spoken as though you were to live long. Alas ! 
while I am addressing you. Death may receive his com- 
mission to cut you down, ere the ink shall have become 
dry upon your diplomas. I have so often wiped the 
damp of death from the brow of youth, that I look even 
upon blooming manhood as little better than the corpse. 

Well may I say to you what the prophet said on Car- 
mel — " Choose you this day whom ye will serve," or if 
you have made your choice, what Jesus said to Judas — 
''What thou doest, do quickly." 

We must part. Soon the wheels of the mail-coach will 
separate us. Soon the night of the grave will hide us 
from mortal sight till the last day. Living, I will cherish 
pleasing recollections of you, and dying, hope to meet you 
at the right hand of the Judge. 

10 



114 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



/^ HEAT is the diversity among human minds; so great 
^' that it can not be fully accounted for by education, 
association, example — any thing, except original differ- 
ences of mental constitution. These differences are 
owing, not to the introduction of new elements, but to 
new combinations ; such combinations, too, are as end- 
less as those of articulate sounds in human language. 
You will rarely meet with a man in whom there is not a 
tendency to excessive, or defective, or perverted action 
in some faculty or class of faculties. When an uncul- 
tivated mind is neither of great strength nor marked pecu- 
liarities, the ordinary intercourse of society and the com- 
mon duties of life may be sufl&cient checks to its wan- 
derings ; but when a great genius is permitted to educate 
himself he usually becomes a moral monster. Such a 
one may have great learning, merit, success, but is rarely 
capable of just views, of safe and sober judgment. We 
might show the evils of ill-balanced mind, by tracing its 
influences either upon our usefulness, our happiness, or 
our salvation. That I be not tedious, I must limit my- 
self to one of these three. Since the last is the most 
important, I select that. Let us trace the connection be- 
tween mental and religious faith. 

I. The want of mental balance is most frequently seen 
in the following faculties; namely, faith, attention, ab- 
straction, and imagination. 

1. Belief is one of the original powers of the mind, 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 115 

andj like all others, may be conferred in various degrees; 
generally^ however, it is strong in early life, so much so 
that we rarely find a child not disposed to indiscriminate 
faith. Not till frequently deceived do men learn to 
doubt. As their minds mature, however, they find it 
necessary to examine the grounds of their opinions, and 
this process is then a duty; but when they commence it 
while the intellect is still immature, especially if under 
the bias of depravity, without the light of experience, 
and under the influence of infidel or sensual associates, 
they are very likely to form a hahit of doubting^ which 
finally ends in contempt of sacred things, if not univer- 
sal skepticism. Young men should be on their guard 
against this habit, and especially in these republics, 
where a feeling of independence is considered so be- 
coming in youth. Very few, perhaps, are aware to how 
great an extent the power of belief is under the control 
of habit; they may learn something of it from analogy. 
What capability is not strengthened by use, and weak- 
ened by disuse ? That power which can make the eon- 
science either as sensitive as the apple of the eye, or as 
senseless as the cinder, can paralyze or galvanize the fac- 
ulty of faith. 

2. This faculty may be impaired also by an exclusive 
attention to the exact sciences, which accomplishes the 
sad result in various ways. It narrows the field of mental 
vision. How feeble the eye of him who spends life in a 
dark room, striking at minute points, compared with that 
of the sailor, accustomed to survey the broad ocean from 
the mast-head ! so powerless is that mental eye which is 
trained to accurate discriminations and nice definition, 
in comparison with one which takes comprehensive views. 
The grcal mathematician, when he takes wide surveys of 
life and character, much more when he approaches that 
subject which fills both immensity and eternity, may be a 



116 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

little reasouer. The immortal author of Celestial Mechan- 
ism — La Place — is an impressive illustration. Illustri- 
ous beyond comparison as a 'profe%8or of mathematics, he 
was perfectly contemptible as a statesman. In less than 
six weekS; by his mistakes, as Minister of the Home 
Department, under the consulship, he forfeited his place. 
In the language of Napoleon, '^ His niind was occupied 
with subtilities, his notions were all problematic, his 
views were never right, and he carried the spirit of the 
infinitely little into the administration.'' No wonder that 
he had not sufficient breadth of view to scan the Chris- 
tian evidences. Moreover, mathematical studies weaken 
faith by familiarizing the mind to indubitable evidence. 
This inclines us to be dissatisfied with every thing less. 
Demonstration proceeds by regular steps, inseparably con- 
nected, accurately delineated, and leading to conclusions 
the contradictories of which are absurd. Moral reason- 
ing advances through devious ways, by steps irregular, 
independent, and expressed only in ambiguous forms, to 
propositions the opposites of which imply no absurdity; 
hence, he who has long and steadily looked only at ab- 
stract ideas and their relations, will be unable to appre- 
ciate moral proof, however strong, as he who should spend 
years gazing upon the glowing fires of Stromboli would 
have an eye insensible to the soft charms of earth and 
skies. 

3. Faith may be impaired by the habit of disputation. 
This is neither uncommon nor difficult to be acquired. 
That energetic exercise of the mind which is provoked 
by an antagonist is pleasurable, the applause awarded to 
superior information or intellectual prowess is very agree- 
able, and the shout of victory is most refreshing to de- 
praved human nature. Moreover, some men are prone to 
battle as the sparks fly upward. When such have weak 
muscles and strong minds they fight) like certain ani- 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 117 

mals, head foremost, and, like the ram of prophetic vi- 
sion, they often push their moral horns with equal facility 
in opposite points of compass. Imagine a boy of good 
parts and pugnacious spirit among inferior minds in the 
district school. He overcomes in debate, one after an- 
other, all around him, till, flushed with success, and in- 
toxicated with praise, he is carried by his comrades from 
school-house to school-house, as a game-cock with gaffles 
is conveyed to the neighboring roosts. At length he is 
brought to college, and placed in a society which assigns 
its members, without reference to their convictions, the 
propositions they are to establish. It is easy to predict 
the character of mind with which he will go forth into 
the world. There are facts and arguments on hoth sides 
of every moral question. Such a question can only be 
determined by the mental balance. To use this properly 
there must be patient observation, careful discrimination, 
and a steady suspension of the scales; but for these 
operations a mind under the influence of controversial 
training is incompetent. The only two questions which 
any subject admits of are, 1. What is the truth? 2. Is 
this proposition true ? The former is that of the philos- 
opher — it leaves the mind free from improper bias, and 
trains it to honest inference; the latter is the question 
of the disputant — it stimulates the pride of the speaker, 
and fits his mind to run athwart its most solemn convic- 
tions, in the eager search for middle terms. I will not 
say that the office of the disputant is never useful, nor 
that it may not be safely discharged when it succeeds a 
process of investigation ; but I do affirm that a contro- 
versial spirit, leading the mind, as occasion may require, 
to undervalue pe^^ec^ evidence and overrate imperfect; to 
blend things of diff'erent species; to take advantage of 
the ambiguities of language ; to overlook facts important 
to the issues, and bring in facts irrelevant; to confound 



118 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the incidental with the essential, the important with 
the trivial, the accidental Avith the uniform ; to invert 
the order of sequences; or to rush rashly to general con- 
clusions, has a tendency not only to mingle truth and 
error, but to unsettle, in the disputant's own mind, the 
very foundation of the power of belief. Talk as we may 
about the irresistible force of evidence, we all know that 
feeling warps the judgment, both directly moving the 
will to put the intellect in a wrong relation to the sub- 
ject, and withhold or distort the proof which bears upon 
it, and indirectly, by influencing the train of association 
and giving tone to the mind. To have a perfect impres- 
sion, we need both a perfect seal and a wax of proper 
consistence. If we at once mar the seal and harden the 
wax, what can we expect ? The youth who leaves school 
a practiced debater will, in all probability, not only be- 
come a moral porcupine, the annoyance of every com- 
pany into which he enters, but, by degrees, a thorough- 
paced infidel. He will be strongly tempted to assail the 
religion of his fathers, for the sake of always having an 
opportunity to gratify his propensity for combat and fond- 
ness for display; and, by repeatedly distorting the Chris- 
tian evidences, and assuming a hostile attitude to the 
Gospel, he will finally become an earnest enemy of the 
faith. 

The case of Chillingworth is an illustration. He 
would often walk in the college grove, and dispute with 
any scholar he met, on purpose to facilitate and make the 
way of wrangling common with him. While yet a youth, 
he produced, by his perpetual disputation on religious 
subjects, such a skeptical state of mind that he con- 
ceived it impossible to arrive at just views of religion. 
First he is vindicator of the Reformation, and the assail- 
ant of the Pope ) presently he enters the Catholic 
Church, and becomes the defender of her faith; again 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 119 

he returns to Oxford, and becomes the champion of Prot- 
estantism. He dwelt on the borders of absolute skepti- 
cism, if we may believe Lord Clarendon, who says Mr. 
Chillingworth had spent all his younger days in disputa- 
tion, and had arrived at so great a mastery that he was 
inferior to no man in these skirmishes, but had, with his 
notable perfection in these exercises, contracted such an 
irresolution and habit of doubting, that, by degrees, he 
grew confident of nothing. He was a great disputing 
engine without an engineer. He had reason enough, as 
Wood said, to convert the devil, yet not enough to con- 
vert himself. This spirit may exist in the Church; 
foolish questions, and genealogies, and strivings about 
the law, and doting about questions, and strifes about 
words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, etc. — these 
are indications of moral cholera. 

But skepticism often results from a too great facility 
of faith. There is a man who always holds the creed of 
the preacher he last heard. Such were some of old 
'' driven about by every wind of doctrine; by the sleight 
of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait 
to deceive. '^ As you ride through the interior, per- 
chance you see behind you a portly, well-dressed, elderly 
gentleman, mounted on a bay steed, riding rapidly, as if 
to overtake you. He is soon at your side, making your 
acquaintance. You perceive by liis portmanteau that he 
is a country doctor, by his countenance that he is a sin- 
cere, good-natured old man, and by his conversation that 
he is a vain, garrulous, bookish, self-made, but not half- 
made philosopher. He measures, with his quick, black 
eye, your nose and chin, and describes your character ac- 
cording to Lavater ; he surveys your cranium, and pro- 
nounces you a singer according to Gall. He inquires 
your residence, parentage, and pursuit; but finding it 
more blessed to give than to receive information, he tells 



120 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

you the names and history of the settlers as you ride along, 
and, when the village comes to view, he points out who 
is its richest and who is its poorest inhabitant; who 
keeps the best carriage and who the best piano. He 
quotes Cicero, Aristotle, Darwin, Hume, Mohammed, 
and St. Paul; he would that he was worth ten thou- 
sand dollars! and anon he is glad he is not, for he fears 
the devil would set him at work. Presently he tells you 
he does not believe there is any devil, and, finally, that 
he devotes his leisure moments to fighting the devil and 
the orthodox clergy. As he turns the corner of the 
street, he presses you to call. Being delayed a day or 
two in the village, you inquire into the doctor's history, 
and learn that at eighteen he was a blacksmith, at twenty 
a parson, at thirty a millwright, at forty a doctor, at fifty 
a strolling lecturer on the quadruple subject of temper- 
ance and geography, mnemonics and phrenology; that 
he has, however, seldom had but one occupation at a 
time, finding almost every year some new path to wealth. 
In the year 1825 he could be seen, with radiant counte- 
nance, at the head of a company of merry youth, in the 
valley of the Cuyahoga, planting yellow tobacco ; in 
1835 he was seen, with face beaming with joy, laying 
off" a city in some swamp near the banks of the Mau- 
mee ; in 1838 he is on the borders of Lake Erie, with 
golden hopes, planting morus multicaulis and hatching 
silk worms ; in 1840 he is manufacturing beet-sugar in 
the oak-openings of Michigan ; in 1847 he is volunteer- 
ing for the Mexican war ; and in 1849 ofi" for Califor- 
nia. In religion he has tried all things, without, how- 
ever, holding fast to any. In youth he is a Methodist 
exhortcr, thundering, flashing, denouncing, and pound- 
ing the pulpit without mercy. Another decade of years, 
and he stands, with long black robe, on the green banks 
of some crystal Jordan, with head bathed in rich sun- 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 121 

light, and knees trembling with emotion, while he ad- 
dresses the multitude that have gathered upon the 
bridge, and the bojs that hang like bunches of grapes 
from the surrounding trees. When a few gray hairs 
have found their way to his temple — a Presbyterian 
elder, he is leading his children up the aisle to be 
dedicated to the Father of mercies. The next half 
decade finds him, with broad -brimmed hat and drab coat, 
sitting in silent meeting, till the profi"ered hand gives 
token of departure. He soon becomes a Mormon, and 
then a Millerite; but, ere the decade is half out, he is 
a boisterous and defiant infidel, madly challenging, in 
the streets and in the papers, all and sundry, the par- 
sons to debate with him. 

Your curiosity prompts you to call upon him, and you 
find him in a long room, lined with drugs, books, and ap- 
paratus — books rare and ill-assorted; drugs botanical 
and mineral, in doses spoonful and infinitesimal ; and ap- 
paratus to cure you either by wind-power, steam-power, 
or water-power. On his table lies the Koran, a copy of 
which he has just procured, and is now reading. He 
talks so as to give you no opportunity to reply; and to 
give you a proof of his boldness and skill, he assures 
you that the last time he was at Church he challenged 
the successor of the apostles to test his commission, by 
taking a dose of arsenic. You leave him with mingled 
pity and disgust, fearing that he is a liopeless case ; but a 
year subsequent — inquiring after him — you learn that he 
was put into a state of clairvoyance and heard unutterable 
words, and since that has been a devoted Christian. 
Here is a man of several mental vices, the chief of which 
is a tendency to believe on insufficient evidence. Nor 
is he raris avis. In classic story we read of one whose 
body was so light that he was obliged to put lead in his 

shoes to prevent the wind from blowing him over — fit 

11 



122 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

emblem he of many minds; and such minds, unless 
very favorably situated, are pretty sure to become skep- 
tical. 

II. The want of mental balance is found, in some 
cases, in the faculty of attention. Our ideas come in 
troops, and their character depends on fixed laws beyond 
our control. They gain admittance without asking con- 
sent, but depend for entertainment upon the will. Our 
power over them is twofold. We can place the mind in 
a region populated with good thoughts ; we can dismiss 
intruders by neglect, and detain desired guests by civil- 
ity. Attention is an effort to detain a perception in ex- 
clusion of others which solicit notice. This faculty is 
possessed by different persons in various degrees of 
strength, and in many is so weak as to be unable to di- 
rect the mind steadily to any object. Such, a one passes 
life as in a pleasant dream. His mind is on the sofa to 
receive calls the year round; as the thoughts come and 
go it seeks neither information nor profit from them, 
and, its effort being entertainment, its recollections are 
like images drawn on the bosom of the wave. If all 
subjects are viewed carelessly, it is impossible that any 
but the most superficial should be understood. Convic- 
tion requires not only ])Toof^ but perception. The proof, 
even of religion, is not so obvious as to force itself upon 
a mind which gives it but a momentary notice. Though 
inattentive men may give revelation their assent, they 
have no basis of conviction to sustain them in the hour 
of temptation. Some men of this class blaspheme, oth- 
ers "care for none of these things;'' others say they try 
to think, but can not. When they would meditate upon 
divine things, even on the day of rest in the holy place, 
or at the hour of stillness, in the retreat of secret prayer, 
other thoughts rush on them, and they find their minds 
like- the fool's eyes. Many of these persons, being pos- 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 123 

sessed of some good mental powers, when they can be 
brought to fix their attention, form correct judgments ; 
and; since common topics and temporal interests press 
upon them constantly, they may be wise in little 
matters and judicious in icorldJy conccims, while they are 
fools in all that is suhli?ne, and neglectful of eternal real- 
ities. 

This class is numerous. Go into the streets and stores, 
and you find multitudes who pay attention to things only 
as they are forced upon them. Because politics, fashion, 
and trade press themselves on the senses, and mix them- 
selves with the passions, they are politicians, or dandies, 
or tradesmen; and because religion does not obtrude it- 
self on them, they know but little about it; they go to 
meeting because custom or weariness leads them ; they 
hear of redemption, and grace, and regeneration, and 
they suppose, because they have heard these terms so 
often, that they understand them; but when asked to de- 
fine, they find themselves in the situation of St. Austin 
defining time, who said, '^I understood all about it be- 
fore I was asked, but now I know nothing of it." They, 
perhaps, have no objection to religion, and can hear the 
preacher without offense, or, may be, as one who has a 
pleasant voice, and plays well on an instrument; but 
since they are unmindfid of his words they are unmoved 
by them. They are infidels, as the modern Aristophanes 
was. Mr. Boswell asked Dr. Johnson if Foote was an 
infidel. "He is," said the Doctor, "as a dog is; he 
never thinks on the subject." This species of infidel 
may be found at all elevations of society, but particularly 
at the higher, and especially in that portion of it which 
has been raised suddenly. Of such it may often be said, 
"Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of 
God upon them; they send forth their little ones like 
a flock, and their children dance ; they take the timbrel 



124 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

and harpj and rejoice at the sound of the organ. . . . 
Therefore they say depart from us; for we desire not the 
knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty, that we 
should serve him ? or what profit should we have if we 
pray unto him \" Well may the Psalmist reason with 
such : ^' Understand, ye brutish and ye fools, when will 
ye be wise? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? 
he that formed the eye, shall he not see ? he that chas- 
tiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? he that teacheth 
man knowledge, shall not he know?" We could forgive 
the beast were he to receive his food without gratitude, and 
regard his master without attention; but "the ox know- 
eth his master, and the ass his master's crib." We 
might pardon the brute should he murmur in the midst 
of abundance; but, while "the wild ass brays not in the 
midst of his grass, and the ox lows not over his fodder," 
the thoughtless sinner, forgetful of his almighty Bene- 
factor, often utters blasphemies over his table. We can 
forgive the bird that sinks to roost at evening shade, and 
rises up at morning light, regardless of every thing but 
present pleasure and present pain — that gives no atten- 
tion to its origin, interest, or destiny; but, alas! "the 
stork knoweth his appointed time, and the turtle, and 
the crane, and the swallow the time of their coming," 
while men, endued with reason, and moral sense, and an 
apprehension of God, and a revelation of his will, can 
spend a long life absorbed in the petty interests of life, 
and give no attention to any thing which does not grat- 
ify sense, or appetite, or animal passion. 

III. Sometimes the want of mental balance is found 
in the faculty, or process, if you please, of abstraction. 
By this we resolve a complex idea, and separately con- 
sider one or more of its elements. This process can 
scarce be overrated. Without it neither the poet nor 
the artist could form his beautiful creations. His power 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 125 

of combination were useless without materials. Whence 
can he obtain materials^ but by abstracting from complex 
ideas? Without it we could have no philosophy; for 
what is philosophy but generalization ? and this implies 
abstraction. Without it we could have no reasoning, at 
least of the demonstrative kind. Without it, indeed, 
what better were mankind than the brute ? Deprive 
them of abstraction, and you rob them of language ; de- 
prive them of language, and you set them with the beasts 
of the field. Though all human minds possess it, yet 
some have it in so small a degree that they rarely attain 
to comprehensive views or general truths. They survey 
the fields that encompass their native village without 
ever reaching the ideas of vegetation or germination; 
they amuse themselves with the cat that purs at their 
feet, and the dog that bears them company, without 
thinking of the classes and orders of animated nature ; 
they shiver in winter, and perspire in summer, without 
any notions of zones and latitudes; they whistle with 
their shopmates, and sing songs with their merry wives, 
without ever reaching the great idea of man ; they look 
up to the heavens without seeing God. Whether they 
mark the moon walking in brightness, or the stars that 
glitter in her train; whether they hail the rising sun, or 
repose in the evening beams; whether they survey the 
well-poised central orb, or the planets wheeling in their 
spheres, they see naught but sights charming to sense — 
no goodness, nor order, nor might, nor design ; these are 
all abstractions. Nor, hence, the glorious concrete which 
they imply — the great I AM. They walk the earth, or 
plow and plant it, or mold some of its productions into 
useful or beautiful forms, without perceiving the distinc- 
tion between the instrument and the agent, the muscle 
and the mind. They think and feel, without thinking 
themselves up to the idea of soul ; they seem lost in the 



126 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

visible, the tangible, the temporal. Of such the poet 
speaks in these words : 

" Fools never raise their thoughts so high : 
Like bi'utes they live, like brutes they die, 
Like brutes they flourish, till thy breath 
Blasts them iu everlasting death." 

What can such a one think of worship in spirit and in 
truth ? Would you have him adore ? You must give 
him something visible. Would you have him worship? 
You must put an emblem in his hands. How different 
the Christian philosopher! He garners truth — abstract 
truth — wherever he turns ; he emerges from the limited 
circle of home and friends to survey humanity, and 
sympathize with its wants and sorrows; he distinguishes, 
not only between the vegetable and the animal, but the 
animal and the rational, the rational and the spiritual. 
By abstracting evidences of design from the face of na- 
ture, he obtains an impressive idea of an intelligent 
First Cause. By the same means he traces the wisdom, 
power, and goodness of the Creator; and, adding to 
them the idea of infinity and eternity suggested within 
him, he lives, and moves, and has his being in God. It 
was by a series of abstractions, for example, that Newton 
climbed to the top of the universe, and caught that 
glimpse of God which made him adore for the rest of 
life. By the same process he learned to see, like Moses, 
Him that is invisible through the smoke of Sinai, and, 
like Paul, Him that is eternal througji the flesh of Jesus. 
Thus, too, an ancient, but not less worthy sage, who 
looked through the heavens to the glory, through the 
firmament to the hand, through the sun to Him that set 
his tabernacle; who, all through the spheres, heard a 
voice, and all through 'the earth saw a line; who, when 
he sought to cover himself with darkness, found the 
night turned to light about him, and, when he would 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 127 

hide within his own breast, found the candle of the Lord 
tracing his thought afar off. Do not misunderstand me. 
Men do not become Christians by abstraction, but by 
faith j but I would have you mark how abstraction and 
its attendant processes aid faith, and how the absence 
or imperfection of them may predispose to infidelity 
or intrench it. The best gifts may be perverted. There 
is a devilish abstraction often associated with great 
genius, which can go through all the works of God for- 
getful of his hand ; can carry its lamp through all sci- 
ence without seeing him; can wing its way to all worlds, 
and sing its song under the gate of heaven, without 
thinking of him. Hellish metaphysics, that can ab- 
stract, for its contemplation, the earth — God's footstool — 
from his feet; the heaven — God's throne — from his maj- 
esty; the clouds — God's chariot — from his presence; the 
thunder — God's voice — from its teachings; the wings 
of the wind, on which he walketh, from the impress of 
his footsteps; that can even abstract the human soul 
from the universal spirit in which it breathes, and the 
universe from the arms which bear it up. 

The Almighty has mercifully regarded human infirmi- 
ties. In Paradise he walked visibly in the garden; in 
the patriarchal dispensation he conversed with men by 
his angels, and gave them altars and sacrifices for his 
worship. When he led his chosen people out of bond- 
age, he put a cloud before them by day, and a pillar of 
fire by night. When he gave them a law, he did it in 
the midst of thunder, and lightning, and smoke, and an 
audible and mysterious voice. All this was adapted to 
a low state of intellectual cultivation, in which the mind 
was taken up with the outer world, having only reached 
the borders of the region of abstract thought. In the 
fullness of time, Christ came to preach peace, through 
his blood, in accents of mercy. Even under the present 



128 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

dispensation we are not entirely without aids for the 
mind in its ascent to spiritual things. We have church- 
es^ Sabbaths, ministers, and a few simple but significant 
symbols. He who neglects them is criminal; so he who 
rests in them. God is a spirit. The case of the heathen 
we are not called on to judge; but, surely, we, who har- 
ness the lightning for horses, may ascend the heavens to 
worship. The world is hastening to another dispensa- 
tion, in which, perhaps, there need be no sanctuary, built 
by hands; for no one shall say to another, ^'Know ye the 
Lord?" We are called on to prepare for this state of 
things, or for one analogous ; for in the world where men 
are as the angels of God they need no candle, neither 
light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light. 

IV. The want of mental balance is often found in the 
imagination — that faculty which, electing, with a nice 
perception, from the train of associated thought, the 
beautiful or the sublime, combines them, with a delicate 
appreciation of relations, in enchanting forms. This is 
the artist of the mind, and it decorates all her chambers 
with pictures and statuary, and perfumes them with pre- 
cious odors. It may unbalance the mind either by its ex- 
cessive or defective action. The former will carry it from 
the outer world to wander through Eden or through hell; 
the latter will make the real world one of mere blood and 
bones, of granite and grass. It is not my purpose to 
treat of imagination any further than it is related to the 
reasoning power; nor this, only so far as to show its injflu- 
ence on faith. For imagination is not only a soother of 
human sorrows, a builder of joyous homes, an enchantress 
leading the soul up the steeps of lofty conception to 
bright and boundless visions, but, in its sober moods, is 
the handmaid of reason, the friend of God : hence, skep- 
ticism generally denounces and affects to despise it. 

Imagination aids faith by aiding its indispensable con- 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 129 

dition — apprehension. Every description is an outline 
merely, which imagination must fill up, to give it resem- 
blance to reality, and make us feel the force of analogy 
in favor of its truth. It is needed in the interpretation 
of prophecy. The prophets speak in figurative language, 
and their words can not be properly appreciated by one 
whose imagination is torpid. It is requisite that we may 
feel the force of the evidences of revelation. The exter- 
nal evidences being adapted to the mass of mankind, in 
whom the imagination is generally strong, he who re- 
presses this power, to the same degree puts himself out 
of a proper relation to these evidences. The internal 
evidences are founded in the value of revelation ; and 
since it is adapted to the wants of man, how can any one 
fully appreciate it who is unable to feel the great heart 
of humanity? and how shall one do this without the 
faculty which enables us to rejoice with them that re- 
joice, and weep with them that weep ? The Bible points 
to scenes on high, and fancy helps faith to feel the pow- 
ers of the world to 'come. 

There is a large section of skeptical minds who, by an 
exclusive attention to natural science, extinguish all that 
is warming and expansive in the soul. These men would 
raise children as they do hogs, by placing them in favor- 
able circumstances to fatten, and, when they are grown, 
would measure them with a three-foot rule, and weigh 
them in the hay-scales; would estimate their hearts by 
the pulsations at their wrists, and their brains by an elec- 
trometer. They would test the Bible by the rule of 
three, and estimate piety by the laws of physiology. 
They live in a world of exclusive matter, where all util- 
ities are measured by inches, and all profit and loss de- 
noted by dollars and cents. Surely, this is philosophy 
falsely so called. 

Equally injurious is an excessive imagination. By 



130 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

presenting every thing in distorted proportions, it pre- 
vents a correct apprehension of any thing; divorcing the 
heart from the conduct, it unfits us for a right estimate 
of morality; shunning the real world, it destroys our 
sympathy with man, and our interests in what concerns 
him — happy if it do not press us to tlie borders of de- 
rangement. There are many skeptics of this class, of 
whom Rousseau may be taken as a type. Geneva, in the 
early part of the last century, gave birth to this remark- 
able man. His mother dying young, and his father be- 
insc engacred in the humble duties of an artisan, his 
mind was permitted to grow as a vegetable in the wil- 
derness, deriving nourishment from the soil in which 
it was accidentally placed, and sending forth its branches 
without direction or repression from human skill. At 
the age of seven he was an eager devourer of romances; 
at eight he committed Plutarch's Lives to heart; at nine 
he read Tacitus and Grrotius; at ten he was placed in the 
care of a country clergyman; and at fourteen he was ap- 
prenticed to an engraver. Running away from his mas- 
ter, he wandered upon the mountains of Savoy, till the 
prospect of starvation induced him to renounce the 
Protestant faith for the sake of a support from the 
mother Church ; placed in a monastery, he soon made 
his escape, and, after many adventures, at length found 
a patroness in Madame de Warens, of Annecy, with whom 
he remained till he was twenty. He then went to France 
as music teacher, in which capacity he maintained him- 
self with various fortune till 1742, when he was appointed 
secretary to the French embassador of Venice ; quarrel- 
ing with his employer, he returned to France to resume 
his former occupation, and devote attention to natural 
science. In 1750 he commenced author, and at diflfer- 
ent but not distant periods he composed numerous 
works; the last of which excited so much opposition, 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 131 

that he found it difficult to procure a resting-place for 
his feet, either in France or Switzerland. In a misera- 
ble and misanthropic old age, and after a fruitless, aim- 
less, and romantic, though gloomy life, he found a grave 
in the Isle of Poplars. Though possessed of a mind of 
peerless power, a heart of exquisite tenderness, a style 
of surpassing beauty, an accurate knowledge of the hu- 
man breast, and an extensive acquaintance with the 
world, his powers, because ill -balanced, were always ques- 
tionably, often perniciously, employed. 

His works evince knowledge that would honor Bacon, 
with ignorance that would disgrace a school-boy; princi- 
ples worthy of Socrates, with sentiments that should 
shame a rake; imaginings gorgeous as Plato's, mingled 
with ravings, like those of madness. But, to be more 
specific, the want of mental balance in Rousseau is evi- 
dent both from his opinions and conduct. 

1. His opinions are characterized by extravagance. 
His first essay, which drew the prize of the Academy, 
was written to prove that the re-establishment of the arts 
and sciences has been unfavorable to morality, which 
was evidently a hasty induction. In his essay on the in- 
equalities among mankind, he maintains that savage life 
is superior to civilized — a notion which, being contrary 
to the sober judgment of the enlightened world, no well- 
informed, well-balanced head could adopt. In his Eme- 
lius, treating of education, he lays down, as his funda- 
mental principle, that every thing should be left to na- 
ture — a principle which needs but to be stated to be re- 
futed. 

2. His works evince inconsistency. In the one last 
noticed he draws a lively and affecting picture of Jesus. 
But in the same work in which he records this beautiful 
vindication of the blessed Jesus and his Gospel, he at- 
tempts to stab both to the heart, by representing Christ 



132 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

as an impostor, and his Gospel as founded on false pre- 
tensions. 

3. Absurdity. Though he courted flattery and rel- 
ished favor, he was accustomed, late in life, to insult 
those who offered him the incense of their praise, and to 
interpret the world's approbation of him as a persecution 
instituted against him by literary men. 

His conduct bears no less evident marks of ill-disci- 
plined mind. It is characterized by extravagance. His 
demeanor in youth provoked his father to drive him 
from home; early in his apprenticeship he steals from 
his master, and runs away to avoid the consequences; 
next we hear of him as a footman, in which situation he 
repeats the crime of theft, adding to it that of perjury; 
escaping from service again, he is an outcast and a vaga- 
bond ; soon we see him seeking shelter and food in a 
monastery, and anon breaking away to go through a se- 
ries of adventures, till necessity brought him again to 
the door of the Church. But these are his years of boy- 
hood. Let us trace his. manhood. Dissatisfied with an 
occupation of his own choosing, he aspires to political 
favor; receiving it at the hands of Montague, he quar- 
rels with his patron, and quits in disgust a post he had 
sought with avidity. Becoming an author, he attracts 
the popular praise by an opera, and then turns it into a 
storm of wrath by a letter on French music. By his 
work on education he draws from Parliament upon his 
favorite pages a condemnation to the flames, and upon 
his person a sentence of imprisonment ; he provokes his 
native city, as he seeks an asylum within her walls, to 
close her gates against him, and send her hangman to 
burn his writings; he rouses the populace of Neufchatel, 
the city of his refuge, to compel him to flee at peril of 
his life; causes Berne to drive him from Peter's Island 
in the most inclement season of the year; and induces 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 133 

England, who opened a peaceful bosom for his weary 
head, to look upon his retreating footsteps with the indig- 
nation due to a flying ingrate. Persecution, in itself, is 
no proof of a want of duly-regulated mind, but when it 
comes from all parties it is, prima facie. Rousseau was 
persecuted alike by Catholic France and Protestant Ge- 
neva; by fickle Paris and steady London; by pious 
bishops and infidel philosophers; by the unthinking 
crowd and the meditative Hume. We can understand 
how a man of good sense may, in this wicked world, in 
defense of some high and holy principle, provoke the op- 
position of all parties, but not how such a one can do so 
in endeavoring to upset all righteous principle. 

Rousseau's conduct also is stamped with inconsistency. 
He writes a pastoral for the stage, and then inveighs 
bitterly against theatrical corruption. He praises integ- 
rity, yet changes his religion twice — once for bread, and 
once for protection. He writes a treatise on education, 
and commits his own children to the foundling hospital. 
While an infidel at heart, he professes the Christian re- 
ligion. Advocating the purest morality, he is, by his 
own confession, a thief, a liar, and a debauchee. It was 
at an advanced age that he said, "I have been a rogue, 
and am still so for trifles which I had rather take than 
ask for.'' In reference to his licentiousness, his perfidy, 
and his want, of natural affection, nothing need be said 
to those who know his history. 

His conduct, in many particulars, is absurd. While 
with a stubborn infidelity he rejects the Christian relig- 
ion, though his mind perceives its evidence, and his 
heart feels its purity, he receives with an easy faith the 
baseless systems of French philosophy, which teach that 
animal vigor is the perfection of man, and animal pleas- 
ure the acme of human happiness. He maintains the 
sufficiency of reason to discover a complete and comforta- 



134 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ble scheme of natural religion, yet confesses himself agi- 
tated and distressed with his doubts. Professing love 
for men, he employs his matchless arts to infuse into 
their minds the poison which corrupts his own. Pre- 
tending to teach the science of happiness, he curses his 
own birth as a misfortune. Priding himself upon the 
inductive philosophy, he amuses himself with fanciful 
hypotheses. Strange compound of vice and virtue, igno- 
rance and wisdom, prayer and blasphemy, faith and skep- 
ticism ! It is easy to see in his mind the preponder- 
ating influence of imagination. Says Madame de Stael, 
"I believe that imagination was the strongest of his 
faculties, and that it had almost absorbed all the rest. 
He dreamed rather than existed; and the events of his 
life might be said more properly to have passed in his 
mind than without him — 'a mode of being' which did 
not hinder him from observing, but rendered his obser- 
vations erroneous. His imagination sometimes inter- 
posed between his reason and his affections, and de- 
stroyed their influence. '^ 

A few questions and inferences, and I have done. 
Have not those who have impaired their power of belief 
some excuse for skepticism ? No more than the drunk- 
ard, who, by his intemperance, has disqualified himself 
for the practice of virtue. Are they not, however, de- 
serving of peculiar sympathy ? No more than the Chris- 
tian, who professes Christ in prospect of the stake ; the 
difficulty of belief in the one case is not greater than the 
difficulty of obedience in the other. Is not the case of 
such a one hopeless? Nay; because the will has power 
over belief. General Taylor, when asked the secret of 
his success at Buena Vista, said, " During all that bloody 
and unequal conflict, I never allowed myself for one mo- 
ment to doubt that I should be victor;'' and he expressed 
in these words a truth which every man feels. More- 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 135 

over, the skeptic acts in common affairs on doubtful evi- 
dence. He can not demonstrate tliat lie will succeed in 
business; that his money will pass; that his food will 
nourish him. If he has faith enough to preserve his 
natural life and secure his temporal welfare, he has 
enough to secure his spiritual life and provide for his 
eternal welfare. 

If the want of proper mental balance disqualifies for 
correct judgment, does it not exonerate us from all blame 
for our errors? Nay; because the balancing of the mind 
is as much in our power as the subjugation of the affec- 
tions, or the regulation of the life. I close with a few 
inferences : 

1. Though a mind may be incapable of arriving at a 
correct judgment, it may, nevertheless, by reason of the 
charms of eloquence, or other advantages which it may 
possess, be the means of misleading others. Housseau's 
essays upon the effect of the sciences, and the origin and 
progress of society, were among the fruitful seeds whence 
sprung the French Revolution of 1789 — seeds which 
have reproduced themselves in the Revolutions of 1830 
and 1848 ; mere logical sequences of that of 1789, and 
which are now leavening the whole mind of Europe, not 
with the principles of rational liberty, but with the vari- 
ous forms of socialism, radicalism, and red revolution- 
ism. 

2. The friend of man should aim not merely at the 
diffusion of knowledge, but at the proper training of 
mind. Schools, presses, books, lyceums, lectures are not 
enough. We must have institutions with courses of in- 
struction so arranged as to produce well-proportioned and 
well-regulated intellect. 

3. Nor is the regulation of the intellect all that is nec- 
essary. The sensibilities and the will must be developed 
and trained. The intellect itself is often well balanced. 



136 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

How rarely does the world produce a well-developed 
uian ! Look into the Bible, and you may easily find a 
person distinguished in one or more particulars. A Pe- 
ter, for example, gifted both in intellect and sensibilities, 
but deficient in will; a Solomon, mighty in intellect and 
will, but wanting in sensibilities. Rarely do you meet 
with a Moses or a Paul, equally able to reach a conclu- 
sion, feel an obligation, or execute a purpose. Look into 
profane history, and you meet the same difiiculty. There 
are Aristotles who reason ; Sapphos who can sing you al- 
most into delirium with their utterances of intense emo- 
tion ; and Alexanders who put forth will, till you tremble 
as in the presence of the Almighty; but not often do 
we meet with a Socrates, presenting, in fair and beauti- 
ful proportions, all the capacities and susceptibilities of 
exalted manhood. Nor have modern nations, with all 
their boasted advancements, been more fortunate than 
ancient. Here are the Bacons, with peerless reason ; 
there the Napoleons, with matchless will ; and there the 
Byrons, with morbid passions; but where are the Lu- 
thers — good, sound, symmetrical men ? 

4. The tendencies of the age seem to oppose the full 
development of humanity. Let me be understood. I re- 
fer not now to the proposed improvements in education, 
which have a direct tendency to make monsters instead 
of men ; but to the progressive division of labor. It is 
separating society into castes as distinct as those of India. 
There is one class running into brain, another into 
tongue, another into eye, another into foot, and another 
into hand, so that it will soon take the whole human race 
to make one great human animal. The difi"erent classes 
are like so many wheels in some great complicated ma- 
chine, each one worthless without the rest, and each in- 
dividual, instead of being the world in epitome, is like a 
cog in a cog-wheel. I grant that this division of labor 



MENTAL SYMMETRY. 137 

secures wealth, art, and civilization ; and if the great ob- 
ject of Grod in creating man was to beautify the world, I 
would have no objection; but if not? Grod does not cre- 
ate man for the world, but the world for man. 

12 



138 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



AY, there is an inner world, and into it I would invite 
you. I would not depreciate the outer; it is worthy 
to be occupied — worthy to be studied, even by angels — 
worthy, though cursed, of its almighty Maker; its 
paths — so full of melody, and fragrance, and beauty — 
are fitted to lead to heaven, and the starry vault which 
overhangs them is a suitable portico to God's eternal 
temple. Praised be Grod for the world of matter, and all 
its accompaniments! — for the air, which not only fans 
the lungs and purifies the stream of life, but, at our 
bidding, wafts our most secret thoughts and feelings to 
our beloved fellow-minds; for the waters, which not only 
fertilize and refresh the earth, but bind its continents 
and islands into one brotherhood; for the light, whose 
vibrations enable us to touch the most distant planet, and 
whose rich beams overspread both earth and sky with 
charms ! 

" My heart leaps up when I behold 
A rainbow in the sky ; 
So was it wheii my life began, 
So is it now I am a man ; 
So let it be when I grow old, 

Or let me die." Wokdswoeth. 

Praised be God for the body of mysterious senses and 
capacities — worthy to be the servant of a rational soul 
during its earthly pilgrimage, and, after having been 
purified in the tomb, to become a partaker of her ever- 
lasting life ! 



THE INNER WORLD. 139 

But there is another world — a world which the "vul- 
ture's eye hath not seen and the lion's whelps have not 
trodden" — a world whence float all those thoughts that 

flow over the universe and make it a volume of truth a 

world in which, scorning the present, we range at will 
the future or the past, and, heedless of place, we share 
infinity with God. 

When shall we enter into it ? Not prematurely : " tarry 
at Jericho till your beard be grown." Nature designs 
that the early years of life should be devoted chiefly to 
the development of the body; hence she entices her new- 
born man to the green bosom of the earth, and the warm 
embraces of the sun, and the full baptism of the fresh 
and fragrant air; hence, too, she fires him with irresisti- 
ble longings to see, to taste, to feel, to leap exulting in 
his new-made powers. Thus she nourishes, and cher- 
ishes, and molds him into man; thus she gives him 

" A spirit to her rocks akin, 
The eye of the hawk and the fire therein." 

At the same time she fences up the borders of the inner 
world. Meanwhile the goodly land of thought is germ- 
inating; and about the time of its first ripe grapes, when 
the outer world loses some of its charms, let the inner 
open its gates. This opening, however, requires pa- 
tience, perseverance, retirement. Perceptions being more 
vivid than conceptions, we can not without eflbrt attend 
to the latter in exclusion of the former. When we turn 
the mind's eye inward, we must either resign ourselves 
to the train of suggested thought from which we awake 
as from a dream, or we must fix our attention upon some 
one of the series, in which case we soon become weary, 
as one listening to the same frequently-repeated note. 
If we attempt to analyze our mental state we become per- 
plexed; for although in the outer world we are familiar 
with the succession of events, in the inner we find all at 



140 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

first in confusion. No wonder we usually remain in the 
wilderness of external things till some strong passion, or 
sense of duty, or accidental circumstance, impels us in- 
ward. Alas ! how many pass through life without scarce 
feeling that there is a world within ! 

Yaucauson, the celebrated mechanician, had his taste 
for mechanics excited accidentally. In his boyhood he 
was frequently shut up in a room where there was noth- 
ing but a clock; to amuse himself he studied its con- 
struction, till, at length, he became acquainted with its 
parts and their relations and uses. Ever afterward he 
found his delight in mechanics. 

Happy for many a man would it be if he could be shut 
up where there was not even a clock, so that he might be 
forced to examine the wonderful machinery of the spir- 
itual time-piece — the immortal soul — till he understood 
its parts, relations, and uses! How much more likely 
would he be to set it by the Sun of Righteousness, that 
its pendulum might swing in symphony with the spheres, 
and its hands go round the circle of duty in harmony 
with the heavens ! Habitual inattention to the outer 
world greatly promotes attention to the inner. The more 
we live the life of sensation the less we do the life of 
reflection. ^'For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and 
the spirit against the flesh, for they are contrary to each 
other." It is said of Democritus that he put out his 
eyes in order that he might study philosophy. The story 
is probably untrue; but it is certain that Poesy put out 
the eyes of Homer and of Milton before she lifted the 
vail from their glorious spirits. I pity you not, blind 
old bard of Scio's rocky isle, as you roll in vain your 
quenched eyeballs to find a ray of light, for so much the 
more melodious was the epic that you warbled through 
the listening cities of your native seas ! Nor thee, thou 
second Homer, but greater than the first, do I pity, as 



THE INNER WORLD. 141 

you sweep from your well-tuned lyre those plaintive pen- 
tameters : 

" Thus with the year 
Seasons return ; but not to me returns 
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, 
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose, 
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; 
But cloud instead and ever-during dark 
Surrounds me." 

No; I pity you not^ because so much the more didst thou 
wander "where the Muses haunt'' — so much the more 
did '^celestial light shine inward/' and raise up things 
invisible to mortal sight. 

The patience, study, and retirement requisite that we 
may look inward will be well rewarded; for, 

1. The inner world is a new one. The youth usually 
knows as little of it as of foreign land. He has, it is 
true, vague ideas of it, as he has of orange groves and 
palm-trees of which he has read but never seen. It were 
glorious to discover even an unknown island. Columbus, 
as he was approaching the New World, was accustomed 
to close each day, in the midst of his assembled sailors, 
on deck, with a solemn meditation and a hymn of praise 
to God. On the evening before he saw the land, and 
while he was gazing at the indications of its near pres- 
ence, he sat musing at the stern, and as he inquired, 
"What is the world upon which I am entering? who are 
its inhabitants? how will they receive me? and what will 
be the consequences of my landing to myself, to Spain, 
to the world?" his feelings became overwhelming. But 
within your breast, immortal man, there is a still mo-re 
glorious world. Columbus could take possession of Amer- 
ica in the name of his sovereign only; he was to leave it 
almost as soon as he touched it; he could not give so 
much as his own name to its shores. The undiscovered 
continents of thought that lie within your breast you 



142 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

may name^ and hold, and occupy at will and forever. 
That country which Columbus discovered was seen by 
millions of eyes before he saw it, and has been by mill- 
ions since; but the world within you is unlike all others, 
and no eye but yours can behold its scenes or trace its 
revolutions, except the all-seeing One. 

2. This world is one of heauty. Lovely as is the outer 
world, it has no beauty in comparison with the exceeding 
beauty of the inner. The beauty of material things is 
but one; that of the mind is threefold — the beauty of 
the present, of the past, and of the future. I know that 
not all within is beautiful. There are marks even in the 
soul of dislocation and disorder; there are chasms, and 
storms, and deserts, often more awful than those of the 
external world; yet over the whole a grandeur, like to 
that of archangel ruined, reigns. The heavens and the 
earth are drawn within us in those forms in which the 
soul has most delight; the past, too, is there, according 
to the affinities of our minds. It is prevailing disposi- 
tion that paints the panorama of remembered thought, 
and cherished joys that display the figures of the fore- 
ground; and as the canvas of memory stretches, the 
more charming scenes of the foreground acquire greater 
relative prominence, so that remembrance gives us, with 
ever-increasing vividness, the scenes of our earlier and 
happier hours, when Nature presented itself with all the 
freshness, and beauty, and purity of youth to our light 
and loving hearts. The village green of our boyish 
gambols, and the oak which first shaded our heads, and 
the bower where we first told our love, are the first ob- 
jects on which the inner eye rests when it turns to the 
past. And then the persons — who are they? Those 
whom we first loved — and how? in their happiest moods 
and their sweetest expression. Do they now slumber in 
the narrow house? We see them not writhing in the 



THE INNER WORLD. 143 

agonies of the death-bed, or cold and motionless in the 
shroud. Memory can say, "0, Death, where is thy sting! 
0, Grrave, where is thy victory!'^ for she gives us back 
the dead even in the loveliest forms they wore. The 
poor, bereaved Irish emigrant, when he forgets the deso- 
lation of the present, and looks into the past, sees not 
the darkness of the tomb. Hark! 

" I am sitting on the stile, Mary, 
Where we sat side by side." 

What does he see? Hark I 

" And the springing corn, and the bright May mom, 
When first you were my bride." 

Even though the specters of past sins and the shadows 
of departed sorrows arise, they come before us with soft- 
ened and solacing tints, and melt the soul into a salutary 
tenderness, which is often felt to be luxurious. The 
future, too, is within. Hope — the busy artist of the 
mind — runs forward and paints the approaching scenes 
in light; and though the picture perpetually vanishes or 
darkens behind him, the mental limner never tires, but 
rushes onward, ever busy and ever brightening the future. 
The beauties of nature are fixed; not so the beauties of 
the mind — they are changeable at will. As the genius 
pores over his mental treasures, 

"Anon ten thousand shapes, 
Like specters trooping to the wizard's call, 
Flit swift before him. From the womb of earth, 
From ocean's bed they come; the eternal heavens 
Disclose their sijlendors, and the dark abyss 
Pours out her births unknown. With fixed gaze 
He marks the rising phantoms : now compares 
Their difterent forms, now blends them, now divides, 
Enlarges, and extenuates by turns. 
Opposes, ranges in fantastic bands. 
And infinitely varies." 

The beauties of nature are attended with deformities. 
The mind can present us with thornless roses and un- 



144 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

mingled fragrance. Milton's Eden blooms with beauties 
that can be combined only in the soul. 

The beauty of the inner world is an independent one. 
It is only poetically that matter can be said to have 
beauty at all; philosophically, beauty, like color and fra- 
grance, belongs exclusively to spirit — 

"Mind alone. Bear witness earth and heaven, 
The living fountain in itself contains 
Of beauteous and sublime ! Here, hand in hand, 
Sit paramount the graces. Here enthroned 
Celestial Venus, Avith divinest airs, 
Invites the soul to never-fading joys." 

The outward world, I know, wakes up the beauty slum- 
bering within; but, in return for the favor, the soul 
throws its own charms over its senseless forms. He who 
would see a paradise without must first make a paradise 
within; then as his soul passes out through the senses, 
she will make ever new discoveries of beauty from the 
reflected hues of her own fancy, and will give every hill 
and promontory a new name, and derive from it a new 
joy, from its resemblance to some picture which the inner 
eye alone has seen. Hyperides once pleaded for a guilty 
woman; but finding that his eloquence was vain, he drew 
the vail from the beautiful bosom of his client, and won 
his cause. could I but expose the beauties of your 
own breasts, I need not add, 

3. That the inner world is a suhlime one. Great extent 
is sublime. Hence, in part, the sublimity of the sky, 
the expanded seas. He who is confined within the 
boundaries of sense dwells in a narrow house; he who 
abides within occupies a large space. Deprived of all 
his senses, he may walk abroad, and, even on his couch 
of straw, enjoy a liberty that tyrants might envy, and a 
range that sensualists can never know. Is depth sub- 
lime ? Who has stood upon the verge of the precipice, 
and looked from cliff to cliff? did not his eyes grow dim 



THE INNER WORLD. 145 

and his brain reel? God has said, ''The heart is deep." 
Plummet line may fathom ocean; but who hath sounded 
the depths of human passion, or human reason, or human 
will? In thy breast is the whole history of man, past 
and to come, in epitome; for in it are the fountains 
whence all human actions flow. Look into the deep well 
of thy heart, and thou shalt see down into the heart of 
Adam. From the depths of thy reason thou canst draw 
up the ladder that raised Newton to the skies. Untu- 
tored slave though you may be, within thee are all the 
elementary principles of that philosopher's immortal dem- 
onstrations. Although thou canst not take the dimen- 
sions of the rice-field that limits thy labors, thou hast 
within thy mind the mathematics that can measure and 
weigh the most distant planet in space. Is swiftness 
sublime? Ask the lightning. But thought mocks its 
lazy foot. It touches all things with a celerity that is 
nearly equivalent to ubiquity; for it oversteps a space 
that, for its distance, can scarce be measured, in a time 
that, for its shortness, can scarce be noted. Is mystery 
sublime ? How mysterious are the faculties of the mind ! 
Imagination is the image of omnipresence. It soars 
backward, or upward, or downward, as on wings of light; 
or rushing onward, with the mien and the majesty of an 
angel, it may cross the boundaries of creation, and hav- 
ing perched on the limits of possibility, may spread its tri- 
umphant wing, and proudly perform its gyrations on the 
clouds beyond. Memory is the image of omniscience. 
It unrolls a canvas on which earth and skies are out- 
spread; so that though the eye may be closed, the soul, 
within its little tenement, can examine all the hues and 
forms of sensible things in its impressions of the past. 
It sends its telegraphic wires back to the green of our 
earliest gambols, and, pushing its magnetic lines through 

the tomb, it brings us messages from eternity — the thou- 

13 



146 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. Al 

sand joys^ and kindnesses, and loves of the lost and 
redeemed ones. Reason is the image of divine wisdom. 
It gives us a knowledge of relations — in proportion to 
which our views expand. With nothing but perception, 
conception, and consciousness, we are fettered in mind 
as one bound to a stake would be in body. By tracing 
relations, we break our chains, and extend our walks 
farther and farther through the universe. Reason often-, 
like the architect, looks along the chain of causes and 
effects, and sees results of which the agents that are to 
produce them have no conception. How little progress 
would men make without its speculations ! Say that 
speculation is a shadow ; yet by a shadow Thales learned 
to measure a pyramid. Say, with Aristophanes, that phi- 
losophy is in the clouds; if some one had not been there, 
who would have calculated eclipses? Say, if you will, 
that the lines of scientific light are intangible and im- 
aginary; so are the solstices and ecliptic; but the sun 
observes them, and the heavens are taught by them, and 
the year is divided by them, and commerce, and history, 
and law, and love fall into order by their guidance. Say, 
if you will, that the speculative reason wheels in air; 
and what shall we say of the earth which spins on noth- 
ing, yet bears you safely? You rejoice in maps, and dial- 
plates, and steam-engines, and railways, and telegraphs; 
but all, all, were first drafted in the reasoning soul, as 
the universe was drafted in the mind of God before it 
uprose from chaos. Even when the labors of enlightened 
reason do not result in any material benefit, still they are 
always improving, always desirable, always grand. How 
superhuman appears Pythagoras pointing out that system 
of the universe which it required twenty centuries of 
subsequent observation and study to demonstrate ! How 
grand Seneca, when in remote antiquity he predicts the 
discovery of a new world upon our planet ! How angelic 



THE INNER WORLD. 14T 

Roger Bacon, projecting Lis mind so far forward of his 
age that his cotemporaries deemed him an infernal being, 
and subsequent times, whose discoveries he had anticipa- 
ted, looked back upon him as a supernal one! 

How grand a movement of mind is generalization ! 
What a wonderful pregnancy does it give to words! 
Each general term is a swarming city of thoughts — a 
word may describe a weight which the planet Jupiter 
could not carry on his bosom, and a few figures, that we 
play with as a child with its toys, may be made to lift the 
screen from the immensities of Jehovah's works. 

And what shall we say of the will? which says to the 
wilderness, bloom, and it is as the garden of Eden; 
which says to the mountain, be open, and the bowels of 
the rock are blasted out; which makes a path through 
the sea, and a pillar of cloud and fire, on an iron path- 
way, through the desert; which tameth the tiger, and 
maketh a plaything of the lion; which grasps the im- 
pending thunderbolt, and hides its powerless flash in the 
bosom of the earth? And what awful power does the 
will sometimes exert within the dominions of the soul ! 
See that martyr laid upon the rack! Every limb is 
stretched, and every nerve thrills with agony. A single 
word, and the prisoner will be relieved and restored to 
his friends. How shall he avoid uttering it? Will not 
his intellect rebel? Will not his heart cry out? Will 
not his tonguCj for an instant, break loose ? Wait and see. 
Hark ! the heavy instrument falls, and a bone is broken, 
and the sharp fragments pierce through the quivering 
flesh. An interval follows — a dreadful interval — rand, in 
the midst of the agony, the executioner demands the 
word of recantation; but that tongue, which utters forth 
groans that make a city shudder, lisps not a syllable. 
Slowly the instrument descends again, and another bone 
is broken, and another, till every limb is in fragments, 



148 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

and the whole body lies lacerated and bleeding; and now 
the executioner approaches, and the dews of death are 
upon the martyr's brow, and though the tongue speaks 
sweetly and freely of Jesus, and of the land where the 
weary rest, it is mute as the grave as to recantation. 
Zeno, on the rack, lest his tongue should betray him, bit 
it off, and spit it out in the face of his judge. The 
human will is, perhaps, the most sublime of all things. 
That Power which wields the lightning and moves the 
storm, which scatters worlds through space as the hus- 
bandman casts seed into the furrow, which by a look 
of terror could blast the universe, suffers the will of man 
to rise up against itself. How terrible looks the fabled 
Atreus, glutted with his banquet of revenge, when the 
justice of the gods comes down upon the feast! Bolt 
after bolt falls on every side, yet the untamed will of the 
rebel, as if in triumph, looks up from the sea of fire, and 
cries, "Thunder, ye powerless gods; I am avenged.'' 
And such a scene — yea, and more dreadful — do we see 
every day enacted in the sinner's breast, where the will 
sits, amid the ruins of the soul, an outcast from God, 
and, though on earth, like Satan in the pit, saying, in its 
desolation, as it approaches the tomb, 

" Hail, horrors ! hail, 
Infernal world I and thou, profoundest hell, 
Receive thy new possessor." 

There is a power behind the will as awful as the will 
itself — the heart. This is the image of creative energy. 
To a great extent it shapes the character, molds the 
words, »and directs the actions of men. Give me a per- 
fect knowledge of a man's heart, and I can give you his 
character and course in general results. The judgment, 
I know, is the informer of the heart, and the memory, 
and the fancy, and the will, and the conscience, and the 
providence of God, are its checks and modifiers; but 



THE INNER WORLD. 149 

upon all of these, except the last, it has a reflex and most 
potent influence: sometimes blinding the judgment, giv- 
ing tone to the fancy, forcing the will, and perverting 
the conscience. Hence, it is that part of our nature 
upon which chiefly the fires of depravity burn, and upon 
which, too, the dews of grace distill. 

We are accustomed to give too much credit to intellect 
in the works of creative genius. Poetry, eloquence, etc., 
are the spontaneous results of influences little heeded 
and little understood. Genius, in its happiest moods, 
when throwing the hues of sensible things over the 
regions of the spirit, or the coloring of the soul over the 
scenery of the earth, is but sweetly yielding to the laws 
that shape the thoughts of the infant on his hobby. 
While the poet may think that he is steering his heart, 
his heart may be directing him, telling him where to stop 
in his spiritual journey, compelling him to survey the 
scenery around him, and even pointing him to the very 
colors in which he should dip his brush. The philoso- 
pher who is indignant at the prejudices of others may 
have his own intellect tinged with unperceived preju- 
dices, expressed in the very words in which he declaims 
against the errors that he exposes. The revolt of the 
common mind at what seems artificial, and the great law 
of criticism which condemns every thing that does not 
seem natural, shows how little of the achievements of a 
genius are due to his volition. To give the mind sucli a 
tone that its spontaneous suggestions shall be worthy to 
be uttered — this is the labor of the heart. 

The heart is the index to the faculty of association. 
Every hill, and river, and blossom which presents itself 
to us opens a department of thought, and lets loose a 
crowd of images, grand or mean, useful or pernicious, 
according to our previous trains of thought; and these 
trains of thiught depend chiefly upon the heart. To 



150 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the holy, for example, every scene brings the animating 
revelations of Scripture, and awakens the transporting 
hopes and exalting charities of the child of God; his 
mind always moves on consecrated ground, and his march 
is in a triumphal procession of sanctified saints to glory 
and to God; he communes with the white-robed and 
pure, and lives rather in the tranquil past or the jubilant 
future than in the dull and sinful present. For him 
roses are roses of Sharon^ and lilies are fragrant with 
incense. For him Christ stands and teaches amid his 
apostolic band, or even in the desert; and angels leave 
their heavenly bowers to gather round his new-born soul 
in the hour of sorrow and of trial. 

And who does not know the influence of the heart on 
the judgment? Why do poets sing better and oftener 
of a lost than a recovered Paradise? Why is it that 
genius planted in the soil of righteousness and the air 
of worship produces only a few fading leaves, while in 
the ashes of sin and the atmosphere of moral death it 
breaks out into gorgeous luxuriance? Why is it that the 
Hebrew melodies are sought after by the few, while the 
Don Juan is craved by millions? Why is it that the 
works of wickedness are often as impressive as the tem- 
pest, while the melting beams of holiness are unheeded 
as the sun ? It is because of the power of the heart to 
warp the judgment. 

The heart is the source of inventive genius. Will can 
not bring up a single thought; the heart is the wizard 
that evokes, shapes, and directs them all. I know it., 
does not make thought any more than the mountains 
make the springs that gush from their grassy sides; but, 
like the volcano, it heaves up mountains within the mind, 
and makes a channel which gathers up and whirls the 
spiritual waters as they fall, and rolls them in deeper and 
deeper currents to the sea. It does more: it disturbs 



THE INNER WORLD. 151 

the electricity of the mental cloudsj and opens the sluices 
of the inner skies. Let the heart be excited, and the 
mind needs no schoolmaster in order to express itself. 
What one man feels he can make another feel. I would 
not despise criticism or rhetoric^ but we had Homer and 
Pericles before either. Love can pour music from its 
throat without a gamut; can ascend the sky, like the 
prophet; in its own chariot of fire; can thunder and 
lighten like unto him that walketh upon the wings of 
the wind. Don't undertake to instruct it. The easfle in 
his eyrie needs no anatomy in order to fold his wings 
around his triumphant heart, no physiology to direct his 
course to the morning sun. The excited soul thinks of 
no rules, and requires none; it seizes its figures and 
arguments without a consciousness of its movements, and 
hurls them with an energy that is like to supernatural. 
Sometimes it seizes and drops, builds up and destroys, 
engages and terrifies, with a confusion that abides no 
criticism, and heeds none; for it is the confusion of in- 
spiration — an inspiration to which, however wild, com- 
mon sense and philosophy alike respond in the hour of 
its triumphant action. Would you see one of the grand- 
est images of God? See the heart of Milton brooding 
over the chaos of his mind, and shaping and animating a 
universe beneath its wings, and filling ihe bights, the 
depths, the paradise, with upper, nether, or surrounding 
fires. Would you bring out f^dly the power of the mind, 
you must light up a consuming fire in the breast. 

Now, in order that I be not thought transcendental, 
consider that although thought flows on according to the 
general laws of association — contrast, resemblance, conti- 
guity, and cause and efi"ect — these are modified by coex- 
istent emotion, frequency of renewal, peculiarities of 
mental constitution, etc., and that these chiefly depend 
upon the heart; flnally, that the stimulus imparted to 



152 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the mind by intense emotion both determines its affini- 
ties and gives the tendency to suggestion by analogy, in 
which principally consists the charm of genius. 

4. The inner world is sublime, because of its influ- 
ences. These extend indefinitely, but immensely, both 
through space and time : each moral world is related with 
many others. You see that star high up in the skies; 
should it leave its orbit, this earth would be shaken — all 
worlds would feel its erratic movements. Look at your 
soul. Its movements may be felt in hell, in heaven, 
raising a new wail in one or a new song in the other. 
The wandering of a planet alBfects only matter; the wan- 
derins; of a soul afi'ects rational and immortal mind. So 
in time the soul is felt afar off; it may pass from earth, 
yet still live beneath the sun : the oak dies, but the acorn 
lives. Truth springs from truth as seed from seed; 
though with this difference, that the crop, while of the 
same nature as the seed, and much more abundant, is not 
always its exact copy. The acorn will produce an oak to 
the end of time; but the Illiad may produce an ^Eneid 
in this age and a Paradise Lost in that; while it is bring- 
ing forth an epic in one mind, it may be producing an 
ode in another, a tragedy in a third, and a philosophical 
oration in a fourth. The history of Thucydides pro- 
duced the orations of Demosthenes, and the novels of 
Sir Walter Scott the historical works of Gruizot and 
Theirs. 

Action is no less prolific than words. He who has no 
children may, nevertheless, have a numerous and illustri- 
ous progeny. His character, like Newton's, or Wesley's, 
or Washington's, may be a fruitful parent. Marathon 
was the mother of Thermopylae, Thermopylae of Salamis, 
Salamis of Plat?ea; the battle-fields of Greece begat 
those of Rome, as Cannae and Philippi did those of Gaul 
and Britain; Bunker Hill and Yorktown have descended 



THE INNER WORLD. 153 

lineally from the first mountains and fields of martial 
glory. The tomb of Leonidas, as long as an oration was 
annually delivered from its side, produced a yearly crop 
of heroes. The dead body of Lucretia, planted by the 
hand of Brutus, brought forth the living liberators of 
Home; and the wounds of Caesar's corpse, touching Ple- 
beian sympathy, as Anthony lifted up his shroud, were 
the seeds whence sprung the tyrants of ten centuries. 
The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. 
Hail, Archimedes! though the sphere and the cylinder 
have moldered long since from thy tomb, I see thee to- 
day. Hail, Demosthenes ! though thy voice has long 
since died away over thy native shores, it heaves many a 
living breast about me. Hail from thy grave ! Hail, 
Paul ! though Nero long ago claimed thy head, thy heart 
beats sacred music in a thousand pulpits to-day. 

5. The inner world is eternal. Those seas must dry 
up and these mountains dissolve, the sun itself shall 
burn out, and the lamps of this temple of night may 
drop from their sockets, like autumn's withered leaves, 
but the soul of that good man shall never die. It is the 
holy of holies which Grod's chosen ministers watch over, 
and which mortal eye may not see; and it shall be re- 
moved with reverential care, when the clothes of this 
tabernacle of the body are folded up, and its boards are 
taken down in the grave. The faculties of his soul are 
holy things, which go not into darkness, but shall have 
an entrance ministered to them by angels of light into 
the temple not made with hands, where they may abide 
with God forever. 

Such a world, young man, is thy soul; and wilt thou 
be dependent on external things for thy happiness, so 
that thou art sad or cheerful according as the wind blows 
hither or thither? Rather be like him whose soul is his 
country — his own dear native land — and to whom neither 



154 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

cloudless skies, nor perennial spring, nor double harvests 
can yield so much delight. 

When we drink the bitter waters of life, or loathe the 
surfeit and the pestilence of its pleasures, or burn with 
the sting of its fiery serpents, let us go home. glori- 
ous truth ! that the mind, shut out from this scene of 
sensible things, can retire into its own infinite domain, 
and, as it moves along, arrange all things into order and 
symmetry by an untaught yet unerring astronomy! 
Thrice happy he who finds that spiritual immensity a 
sanctuary, sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb, lighted 
up with the lamps of angels, radiant with the presence 
of God, and perfumed with his perpetual blessing. To 
such a one even the dungeon is the vestibule of heaven, 
and the scafi'old a step in the ascent to glory. He can 
say, 

" Should fate commaud me to the farthest verge 
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, 
Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun 
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beams 
Flame o'er Atlantic isles, 'tis naught to me, 
Since God is ever present, ever felt. 
In the void waste or in the city full." 

How grand a sight is the launch of a ship ! As she 
moves from the stocks slowly down the inclined plane, 
with a few shouting sailors upon her deck — as she booms 
for the first time into the bosom of the waters, and rises 
and proudly rights herself upon the waves, you think of 
the fate that awaits her, ther rich cargoes she is to bear, 
the multitudes of living men that she is to hold up on 
her planks from the deep, billowy grave; of the com- 
munion she is to establish between distant continents; 
of the messages of love and the lessons of light that she 
is to bear to the nations; of the storms she may encoun- 
ter, and the lightning that may smite her masts and wrap 
her sides in flame, lighting up the sea as if in mockery 



THE INNER WORLD. 155 

of the night; of the many that may plunge down from 
her burning bowels to rise no more, and the few that may 
float over the spray upon some half-burnt plank, and you 
feel a swelling at the heart. But what were this scene 
compared with one such as God might show you, if he 
were to convey you beyond the milky way, and point you 
to a new world which, perhaps, he is at this moment 
lanching into space ! Could you see the wide landscape 
of mountain and lake, and light breaking forth, and cre- 
ation becoming warm and living; fields turning into flow- 
ers, waters floating with birds, lands bringing forth cattle, 
the very dust, op some fragrant eminence, turning into 
two human but not immortal beings — their nostrils dila- 
ting and their bosoms swelling with the breath of God — 
the surrounding stars crowded with excited angels, and 
the new seas and skies becoming vocal with the song of 
the sons of the morning — how would you feel? Suppose 
you were informed that the conduct of that new-made 
pair was to determine the future character of that globe; 
whether, as its valleys fill up with population, it shall 
roll onward in deeper and deeper darkness or into higher 
and higher light; whether it shall float in cursing and 
groans, or in thanksgiving and the voice of melody — 
how would you watch and pray over them, as if the blood 
would rush from your eyes and the soul sob out of your 
body! But the lanch of a single immortal soul into life 
is a grander and more awful sight than the lanch of such 
a world. The happiness of those millions of successive 
generations would cease in the grave; their misery, how- 
ever intense, would terminate in death. Take the most 
joyous conceivable life of one of its inhabitants, or the 
most intense agony of another, and multiply it by mill- 
ions of millions, and you have still but a limited joy or 
sorrow; but that immortal soul carries wrapt up in itself 
a happiness or woe that shall know no limit. As it sails 



156 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

out in life, it is to determine whether it shall float In the 
blackness of darkness forever, or circle in eternal light 
around the throne of God. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 157 



THE Ohio Wesleyan University originated in the liber- 
ality and public spirit of Delaware, a village wbich, 
by the centrality and accessibility of its position, the 
beauty of its rural prospects, and the intelligence, moral- 
ity, and catholic feeling of its inhabitants, is admirably 
suited to such an institution. We woitder not that the 
thought of establishing it should occur to them ; for who 
of classic associations can cross that brook, fringed with 
willows, or ascend yon gravel walk, shaded with majestic 
locusts, without thinking of the groves of sacred Ac- 
ademus ; or who survey, from the margin of that stream, 
or the summits of those flowering hills, the edifice that 
rises so impressively upon his view, without fancying he 
beholds the temple of science ! 

It was easy to perceive that a college to be permanent 
must be endowed, and to be useful must be patronized ; 
and that to secure both endowment and patronage, it 
must be placed under the fostering care of some religious 
denomination. Now, to which of the sects in Ohio were 
the people of Delaware to look for the aid indispensable 
to the establishment of their literary institution ? The 
lordly halls of Kenyon filled the eyes of Episcopalians, 
the neat edifices of Granville attracted the undivided at- 
tention of Baptists, while a score of classic piles were 
distracting the views and dividing the affections of Pres- 

" Delivered August 5, 1846. 



158 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

byterians; but lo ! the Methodists, with a membership 
of 150;O00, had no literary institution of a higher grade 
than the academy. To them, therefore, it was natural 
that our citizens should turn. Accordingly, they sent a 
committee to the North Ohio conference, at its session in 
the fall of 1841, bearing a proposal to donate to it ten acres 
of ground, embracing the sulphur spring, and the pres- 
ent college edifice, on condition that it should, within a 
reasonable time, establish thereon a collegiate institu- 
tion. AVhile the conference unanimously gave due con- 
sideration to this proposition, many of its members 
thought it should be promptly, but respectfully declined t 
not that they were insensible to the liberality of our cit- 
izens, the eligibility of this location, or the duty of their 
own body in relation to collegiate education ; but as the 
conference already had under their patronage a seminary 
of elevated grade, laboring under heavy embarrassments, 
they feared that if conference should accept the proposi- 
tion from Delaware, it would be unable to fulfill its obli- 
gations to Norwalk, and, perhaps, might be false to both. 
This opposition prevented the immediate acceptance of 
the ofi"er. A resolution was, however, adopted, virtually 
referring it to the Ohio conference, which, after a 
brief discussion, passed resolutions appointing commis- 
sioners to accept the premises on the terms proposed, 
and purchase additional grounds. Opposition to the 
measure ceased from that moment. 

Within a short time after the premises were accepted, 
a liberal charter was obtained, an efficient board of trus- 
tees organized, and a preparatory school opened, which 
has been continued without interruption ever since; and 
although we were under no obligations to organize a fac- 
ulty till five years after accepting the property, we have 
closed our second collegiate year. 

Notwithstanding the many obstacles we have encoun- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 159 

fcered, we liave made some progress in endowing the in- 
stitution. Our property is now as follows : 

Ten acres of land, embracing the college edifice, donated by the citizens. $10,000 

Five acres, which is adjaceut 5,000 

The Allen farm, near Marion, 10,000 

Scholarship notes supposed unquestionable 45,000 

Laud and subscriptions known to be safe 2,000 

$72,000 
Our liabilities 3,500 

Our annual expenses are as follows : 

Professors' salaries $3,350 

To meet which, we may calculate with tolerable cer- 
tainty upon the following annual resources : 

Tuition bills , , $1,000 

Interest on scholarships 2,500 

Rent of farm, near Marion, 300 

$3,800 

Our immediate wants are, however, about four thou- 
sand dollars. 

If we compare our condition with the resources of our 
Church, or the magnitude of our enterprise, we shall 
have reason for discouragement. If we contrast our 
premises with those of Yale or Harvard, or survey them 
in view of those immense quadrangles, and superb chap- 
els, and lofty towers, that rise upon the astonished vision 
in the literary Babylons of the old world, we sink into 
appalling insignificance. But let us not despise the day 
of small things. Yale College commenced with thirty 
pounds, and accompanied the earth twenty times in her 
journey around the sun, before it had an edifice or en- 
dowment equal to our own. The transatlantic univerities 
were once as low as we, and in their progress to their present ^ 
glory, they have seen nations rise and fall, and long lines 
of royal patrons gathered to their fathers. We are in the 
wilderness, our footsteps are over the fresh graves of 
barbarians, and the echoes of the warwhoop have scarce 
died away upon our hills. Though the things of the day 



160 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

be small, not so its expectations. We may be quieted 
with indispensables, but not contented. We shall go on, 
as our means increase, to erect a neat and commodious 
chapel — to obtain an opulent library, containing the 
treasures of the wisdom and knowledge both of the 
ancients and moderns — to erect a laboratory, and fill its 
apartments with apparatus and cabinet, perfect and un- 
surpassed — to erect and furnish rows of neat cottages, 
each embosomed in a lovely garden, where the poor, but 
virtuous and diligent pupil can retire for study under his 
own vine and arbor, and take honey from his own bee- 
hive — to complete our endowment, and establish popular 
lectureships, by which the community may be instructed 
in important branches of science without entering col- 
lege classes. President and professors will go down to 
the narrow house, but the University, we hope, will go 
up to realize these broad and lofty expectations. To jus- 
tify this hope, let us glance at our jprospecifs. 

1. These are founded upon tlie interests of the citizens 
of Delaware. The institution originated with them, and 
their personal pride is involved in its success. They 
feel grateful to the denomination which came so gen- 
erously and promptly to their aid, and will express that 
gratitude in a suitable mode. Tell me not of bigotry 
and sectarian jealousy. Conscious of our integrity and 
liberality, we fear no 7'ighteoiis opposition; and trusting 
in God and our own right arms, we dread no unrighteous 
one. Misunderstanding may occur, but it can not last; 
and the opposition founded upon it must vanish with 
itself. It is a matter of joy to me that the University is 
located in a community divided in political and religious 
opinions : the friction of a mixed society prevents dog- 
matism and develops energy. 

The University promotes the wealth of the town. 
The blindness which can not see this, must be as un- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. IGI 

natural as the indifference which can not feel it. It 
may not be amiss, however, to exhibit a few figures on 
this point : 

The institution has brought hither five professors' families, whose ex- 
penses will average $150 per annum $2,350 

One unmarried professor 250 

It has already induced, at least, seven other families to take up their 

abode here, whose expenses perhaps may average $450 3,150 

The students will probably average one hundred, besides those belonging 
to families resident here, and their boarding will average sixty dollars 
per annum ' 6,000 

The cost of their books will be not less than 1,000 

Incidental expenses, professional services, clothing purchased here, etc., 

will not vary much from 1,000 

Expenses of parents, and other visitors of students and professors, and 
the trade they bring, may be estimated at 2,000 

$15,750 

This amount will probably be doubled after the institu- 
tion shall have been five years longer in operation. A 
number of lots have been purchased by families, who in- 
tend to remove hither shortly, to enjoy the benefits of the 
University. A considerable number of houses — we have 
reason to suppose — have been erected here, which would 
have been erected elsewhere, had not this institution 
been founded. Moreover, it is destined to give ad- 
ditional fame to the spring, and a sagacious business 
man, foreseeing this result, is erecting a building where 
golden visitors may throng. The University has in- 
creased the value of the real estate in the place and 
vicinity. This can not be estimated at less than $300,- 
000, nor can it have enhanced in value from the institu- 
tion less than twenty per cent. Here, then, is a donation 
to Delaware of $60,000. If any one think this extrav- 
agant, let him inquire. We have spoken only of the 
direct influences; let us advert to the indirect. The 
prosperity of an inland town, possessing no water priv- 
ileges, or other local advantages, must depend upon that 
of the surrounding country : the prosperity of a country 
depends very much upon its intelligence. Remove the 
present inhabitants of Delaware county, and substitute 
for them a rude tribe of Indians, and what would its 

14 



162 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

farms be wortli ? What would the village of Delaware 
bring? Make every farmer as intelligent as Professor 
Silliman, and every acre, every plow, every turnip would 
be trebled in value, and resources that may lie hidden for 
ages might suddenly come to light. Heretofore, farmers 
have not felt the necessity of science; but when they 
shall have worn out the forest mold, they will learn that 
the value of a farm is intimately related to the knowl- 
edge of the owner. But how shall a people become in- 
telligent? Provide common schools, and compel the 
attendance of children, and you have but taken the first 
step in the public education. You must take three more. 
1. You must secure competent teachers, without which 
the school is a farce and a curse. Where are you to ob- 
tain these? Men in commercial, professional, or agricul- 
tural life, have neither the habits nor the inclination for 
teaching. If they had, they would not abandon those 
lucrative pursuits for a scanty support. To the young 
men you must look ; and where are they to acquire suit- 
able qualifications ? At the college. 2. You need com- 
petent school directors and examiners. And icJio are 
competent ? Not they who are acquainted merely with 
grammar, arithmetic, and geography. They who have 
studied nothing else, know not these. You require men 
of enlightened minds, of comprehensive views, of dis. 
ciplined powers, who can take an interest in the diff'usion 
of knowledge, examine the difi"erent modes of instruc- 
tion, analyze and test proposed improvements in educa- 
tion, and introduce such as are truly valuable. Whence 
do such men come ? In nearly ever}^ district where the 
common school prospers are graduates to whom its vigor 
may be traced. 3. You need school books. Who shall 
write them? He who knows not the laws of the human 
mind, would make but a sorry text-book in arithmetic; 
he who has no acquaintance with ancient languages. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 163 

would compile but a meager grammar; and let none 
but an educated man write even a primer. The 
farther a mind is in darkness, the greater the genius 
required to bring it into light. Much skill is requisite 
to write for a man, yet more to write for a child. Col- 
leges are needful to awaken and perpetuate an interest in 
common schools. The influence of colleges, in elevating 
society, is immediate as well as remote. A farmer com- 
ing to the seat of learning to dispose of his produce, 
hears a favorable account of the students, and finding 
that he can support his son at the University without 
feeling it sensibly, determines to send him one session. 
The boy makes rapid progress, and the father is so well 
pleased that he continues *him another session, and then 
another year. Upon his return, he is the pride of the 
father, and the joy of the mother. Showing his superi- 
ority, incidentally, in a thousand ways, he attracts 
brother and sister to the flowery paths of knowledge, 
and leads them by the route he himself has pursued, to 
the bright eminence which he has attained. He now 
organizes a debating club, and is elected president; he 
establishes a library, and is made librarian ; he delivers a 
lecture on astronomy, and excites general admiration. 
The family now take higher rank in the neighborhood. 
But this stings the lads and lasses that have heretofore 
looked down upon them. Is not this, say they, Minor, 
the blacksmith ? and was not James, his son, once our 
plowboy? and are not his brethren, Joseph, and John, 
and Henry, all with us? Well, father, exclaini the 
youth in a dozen cabins at once, we will go to college 
too. Presently there is heard throughout the vicinage, a 
note of preparation — it enters the ears of young James, 
and is borne on the wings of the wind to his joyous 
home, where it provokes his family to resolve that, to 
keep their ground, he must return to college and grad- 



161 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

uate. Meanwhile the circle of emulation is constantly 
widening; and what is transpiring in this part of the 
country, is going on in others. Thus, in the region of 
the college, there is a gradual elevation of the whole 
platform of society. Industry is stimulated, intelligence 
diffused, improvements introduced, the public taste re- 
fined, enterprise provoked, acquaintance extended, and 
correspondence with distant points established; cabins 
become villas, swamps parterres, the forest is fragrant 
with the lily and the rose, and the whole land seems to 
be moving upward to the sun. 

We have seen the influence of the college upon the 
xcealih of the town. What will be the effect upon its 
pleasures? The young people being educated will be- 
come refined — for intellectual pleasures awaken a taste 
for the fine arts — the door-yards will be adorned with 
shrubs, the gardens with statuary, the dwellings with 
paintings, and the evening carols of your children will be 
accompanied with tones sweet as those of the harp of 
David — the pleasures of sense, and the turbulence of pas- 
sion, will, amid the general serenity, and beauty, and 
harmony, grow distasteful, and when the young gather to 
their feast, it will be a feast of reason, seasoned with the 
exhilarating pleasures of the eye and ear. /am not mad, 
but ye are, if ye estimate the influence of your college 
upon the social pleasures of the town, by a glance at 
those rude collegians that toss the ball on that green em- 
inence, or lounge upon its grassy slope. Look to thai 
incipient library receiving perpetual additions — to that 
nucleus of a cabinet, which, in its progressive enlarge 
ment, will exhibit more and more of the beauties of na- 
ture — to that gallery of paintings, which, while I speak, 
many may form a fixed purpose to increase, till the eye 
can b^ feasted and the soul entranced — to that laboratory 
we have in view, where air will be analyzed, water decom 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 165 

posed, and liglitning imprisoned — to those popular lec- 
tures on science, where the humblest of your citizens 
may learn philosophy. Look at the refined circles of 
New Haven. And what influence upon the character 
of the village does the college exert ? It annually floats 
her name upon a thousand leaves on all the winds of 
heaven ] it proclaims her praises upon the public breath 
through all the regions of the land; it writes your best 
words, and prints your best works, in a book ; it praises 
your health, and apologizes for your sickness; it will 
grave your scenery with an iron pen, and lead, if not in 
the rock forever. 

Nor must we omit to inquire, what will be the influ- 
ence of the college upon your village in coming ages? 
The Eternal City may become a waste, but the dominion 
of her nobler minds will endure to all generations. The 
college, if fosterQd, will not only embalm the memory 
of its founders, but give immortality to their sons. 
Whence come earth's great ones — the Jeff'ersons, the 
Erskines, the Websters — the founders of constitutions, 
the expounders of law, the embassadors of nations ? As 
a general rule, from the college. Hither come the 
bench, the bar, the senate chamber, the pulpit, the 
throne, to fill their vacant seats. Place the names of 
your children upon the college catalogue, and, as a gen- 
eral rule, you enroll them upon the scroll of respectabil- 
ity, if not of fame. Graduate them, and they are fair 
candidates for the highest honors and emoluments of the 
government. How great, then, the advantages you pos- 
sess over the people of many neighboring towns ! 

The college, moreover, tends to produce a homogene- 
ous community. In nature, in providence, in grace, God 
creates distinctions. To Jiis will we should bow; but to 
make artificial ones is to thwart his design. It is the 
glory of this Union, that this government can create no 



166 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

aristocracy; it is her shame that the purse can. It is per- 
petually drawing, in every city and village, a broad line 
of demarkation, which stops not even at the temple or 
the grave. But let the children of a town be well ed- 
ucated, that line will be narrowed, if not obliterated. 
Let them sit side by side through a full course, and they 
will go out brethren in the bands of light. 

There are, I know, disadvantages connected with a 
literary institution. Bad boys will play freaks. But 
if any think that these outweigh the advantages, I say 
not he is witless, but that the watch of his wits needs 
winding up. 

II. The prospects of the institution will appear good, 
if we consider the interest of the foster conferences in its 
success. They passed resolutions accepting, with its con- 
ditions, the donation of the citizens, and determined to 
endow the University speedily, permanently. These res- 
olutions are pledges to the citizens of Delaware, to the 
Legislature, and to the public — they bind the promisors 
in the mode the promisees understood them — they secure 
all reasonable energies of the conferences to their fulfill- 
ment, and bar all action inconsistent therewith. Some 
may, perhaps, think them of little consequence. What ! 
who compose these conferences ? For the most part, 
men aged, wise, good. Are thci/ not to be trusted ? 
Have their brains lost the scent of true policy? Itin- 
erant preachers may know little of books, but surely they 
know something of men and things. They are not prone 
to involve themselves in heavy liabilities without consid- 
eration? And were not these conferences sincere as well 
as considerate? Are their speeches but the explosions 
of tickled lungs? Are their votes but the utterances 
of "little nestlings that cry out on the top of the ques- 
tion?" Have they never read the ten commandments? 
Even men without the Bible do not often voluntarily 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 167 

assume obligations they do not intend to fulfill. We 
trust in the Indian's pipe of peace — we rely on the re- 
solve of lawless Arabs, gathered around the slaughtered 
caravan, and clamoring for the spoils — we confide even in 
the pirate crew upon the deck slippery with the blood 
of their victims, when they deliberately resolve., and can 
we not trust in a body of Christian ministers, who ven- 
erate truth, not only as the bond of society, but as the 
attribute of God ? But, perchance, they will some day 
see a better location, or have a better oflfer, or find the 
village of Delaware supine and faithless. What of that? 
"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall 
dwell in thy holy hill ? He that sweareth to his own 
hurt, and changeth not.^' But may we not see in the 
already written history of this institution, an earnest 
of the final fulfillment of the largest conference prom- 
ises? North Ohio and Ohio conferences have sent out 
agents into every corner of the state to solicit donations 
on its behalf, given liberally to its funds from their own 
resources, borrowed means on their own credit to pay its 
debts, and sent members from their own bodies to fill its 
professorships. We, upon this platform, know our fath- 
ers and brethren, and would not be here, had we doubted 
their sincerity. We have no wish to enact a farce at a 
sulphur spring, or to feed, promise-crammed, upon the 
air. But is not collegiate education neio and strange to 
Methodism ? Nay : she was born, cradled, and baptized 
within college walls, and she has manifested a zeal for 
education worthy her origin. What Church in the 
United States, save one, is founding so many literary in- 
stitutions as she? But are not her seminaries of learn- 
ing the results of youthful zeal and indiscretion ? True, 
many of our young and educated men are doing duty 
manfully in this department, but many others — we say it 
more in sorrow than in anger — are indifferent to our 



168 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

educational enterprises, as if they would fain see the 
seats which death vacates around them, filled up with the 
ignorant; that they might the better ^' lord it over God's 
heritage." The old preachers are the hope of our col- 
lege. When this institution first went up to the North 
Ohio conference, its senior members were her advocates : 
they are still her firm and ardent friends. When she 
first knocked at the door of the Ohio conference, and 
when her enemies waxed strons; in their resistance, and 
when her friends became weak with fear, who was it that 
arose, and, by an overmastering eloquence, prostrated all 
opposition, and raised every hand for her admittance ? 
It was one whose temples are crowned with hoary locks. 
When she went up last autumn naked and hungry to 
yonder temple of convocation in Cincinnati, who ran to 
meet her in the vestibule, and fell on her neck and kissed 
her, and throwing the best robe around her shoulders, 
and putting a golden ring upon her fingers, and shoes on 
her feet, led her to his brethren, and went up and down 
the aisles "making merry" with his friends? It was a 
father who, long since, seeking, like Abraham, a better 
country, pitched his tent upon this spot, before civilized 
man had reared his cabin upon it, and who threaded the 
wilderness beyond, clad with a blanket, to preach the 
unsearchable riches of Christ in the wigwams of the sav- 
age. If the University pass through a fiery trial, to 
whom does she turn for an advocate ? It is a man that 
trembles on his staff who rises — it is an eye dimmed 
with age, that flashes with indignation, and a mind 
matured by threescore years and ten, that feels for the 
pillars of her assailant's argument. Look yonder ! they 
are taking up a collection in conference. Here comes a 
young man well-dressed, well-fed, well-educated. He 
comes from a wealthy station, where he has married a 
rich wife. He would not have come at all, at this 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 169 

moment, but that, tlirougli inadvertence, he did not 
escape from the house before his name was called. As 
he steps to the table, he dryly says, ^^Set mc down five 
dollars/' But now an old man rises, pocket-book in hand, 
and moves toward the secretary's desk. Forty years ago, 
a vigorous youth, mounting his horse, bidding farewell to 
his weeping friends, and turning his eyes away from the 
alluring paths of honor and riches along the banks of 
the Potomac, he started, at the call of the Church, for 
the wilds of Ohio. The valley of the Muskingum was 
his circuit, and joyfully he sang the songs of Zion 
through the woods, looking up the home of the emi- 
grant, to preach Jesus to him and his household. Some- 
times the night overtakes him in a pathless swamp, and 
he spends the hours of darkness amid howling wolves or 
prowling bears. Sickness seizes him, but he rises before 
he has recovered, rejoicing to pursue his way. And now 
his natural force is abated, his eyes are dim, and a large 
family depends upon him for support. He comes this 
year from a circuit, where a people have sprung up that 
knew not Jacob, but on Fisgah's top he sings, 

" No foot of land do I possess — 

No cottage in this wilderness, 

A poor, wayfaring man." 

Well, when he reaches the table he lays down twenty- 
five dollars, and blesses God that he has it to give to a 
Methodist college. I draw no fancy sketch. When I 
hear the Methodist preachers of former days accused 
of opposing education, I repel the charge — unless it be 
qualified — as a base calumny. 'Tis pseudo-Methodism, 
not genuine, that sneers at learning. Some of her 
preachers, I know, did underrate knowledge, and there 
are a few now among us, both old and young, of the same 
character. They will have nothing to do with science, 

because it is not the smooth stone from the brook : they 

15 



170 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

won't use Goliath's sword, even to cut off Goliatli's head. 
Thej tell us God has no need of human learning ; but 
they seem to think he has great need of human igno- 
rance. We believe he can carry ob his work without 
either. The question is, whether he will. If not, which 
instrumentality will he select ? sl Jit one or an unjit ? Let 
the analogies of his providence answer. When, for in- 
stance, he sends an angel with a prophet's dinner, what 
does he give him? a bag of sand, or '^ cakes baken on 
the coals ? ^' 

Admit that the conferences are interested in sustaining 
the institution, will the people sustain them? We be- 
lieve so. 

They are able. A dollar from each member would 
answer all our purposes for an age. And can they not 
spare it? Hundreds of them give more than this annu- 
ally to look at monkeys, and will they not give it to edu- 
cate men? Multitudes give ten times that amount every 
year to burn cigars, and will they not give this much to 
enkindle immortal 7ninds ? Thousands of families among 
us have hoarded treasure, from which they might abstract 
enough for a college, and yet have sufficient left to bind 
the hands, and cord the feet, and blast the intellects, and 
blacken the hearts of their sons, and send them rattling 
down a turnpike road to hell. There is ten times enough 
surplus wealth in the Methodist Episcopal Church of 
Ohio to endow a university handsomely, and happy would 
it be for that Church could we withdraw it from her 
coffers, even if it were cast into the depths of the sea. 

They are willing. Are not Christians ready to do their 
duty? What! is there no difference between the sinner 
and the Christian? What, then, is this difference? 
The same that there is between selfishness and benevo- 
lence, between living to this world, and clj/ing to it, be- 
tween laying up treasures on earth, and laying them up 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 171 

in heaven. And arc Methodists all hypocrites? There 
may be among them some such^ but the body are sincere : 
or are they deceived ? is their profession empty air, their 
regeneration a chimera, and their rapture but the ardor 
of ill-regulated passion ? Nay, verily. There is as much 
true, intelligent, self-sacrificing religion among them, as 
among any people on earth. Convince them of their 
duty, and they will do it. I believe they can be shown 
that it is their duty to sustain the Ohio Wesleyan Uni- 
versity; therefore, I believe they will. 

1. Is it not clearly the duty of a Church to give a 
thorough education to her best minds? Within the 
Methodist cabins of Ohio there may be an Isaac Newton, 
or a Robert Hall; but, if uneducated, the one may be 
the village blacksmith, the other the country magistrate, 
and neither may be known beyond the limits of his native 
county. But Methodist youths may be sent to Presbyte- 
rian or other colleges. That has been done, and what, 
generally, is the result? They are Methodists no longer, 
but give their talents to the Church which has educated 
them: according to the general law of Providence, that 
when a people do not improve their blessings, they are 
taken from them, and given to another that will bring 
forth the fruits thereof. There are, probably, one hun- 
dred Methodist youths in the other denominational col- 
leges of this state. 

2. It is the duty of the Church to furnish her propor- 
tion of teachers for the children of the republic. 

3. She is bound to make a judicious use of all the 
means which Providence offers her of spreading the Gos- 
pel. One of the most efficient is the press. To some 
extent it has been employed by the Church, in the hands 
of Luther, Wesley, and others. It is still a great bless- 
ing, as used by the Churches; but look at its chief 
issues: silly poetry, corrupting novels, miserable heresy, 



172 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

concealed infidelity, and Atheistic science — "falsely so 
called" — stimulants to the lust of the eye, the lust of 
the flesh, and the pride of life. It seems as if Satan had 
come up from the pit to manage the press. He employs 
the best ruined minds of earth to prepare its matter, and 
uses Christian as well as sinful fingers to set the type, 
and kindle the fires, and direct the steam, and catch the 
ten thousand sheets as they are thrown off every hour, 
and bear them, unbound, to the railroad depot, that they 
may be hurried to the ends of the earth, for the poison- 
ing of the nations. Nor do these leaves merely preoc- 
cupy the irreligious and infidel mind; they are too often 
puffed by the religious press into the finest fields of the 
Church, to corrupt the fountains of her spiritual life. 
And how shall Zion rescue the press from its perversion ? 
She must polish the minds of her noblest youth, till they 
can rival the glowing pages of Scott, and Voltaire, and 
Sue — a process which requires the college. 

4. The Church is bound to keep pace with the age in 
knowledge, that she may turn its disclosures to good 
account. Within the last half century, the progress of 
science has been unparalleled, and yet she seems but to 
have reached the vestibule of discovery. As all addi- 
tions to science throw additional light upon the attri- 
butes of God, we might suppose that religion would 
advance foot to foot with learning — that every discovery 
would awaken in the philosophic mind a deeper adora- 
tion of the Creator, an intenser interest in his word, and 
a stricter obedience to his commandments. But, alas ! 
for human depravity. The philosopher can pass through 
the beautiful display of afiinities in the ocean's depths, 
ascend the successive strata of the solid globe, and survey 
new wonders in the sidereal heavens, with an ungodly 
mind and a prayerless heart; nay, he often suffers his 
acquisitions to generate a sullen pride, which looks with 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 173 

scorn upon the claims of God, and the sacrifice of Christ. 
Atheism, Deism, and heresy often join themselves to 
Science, and endeavor to turn her revelations against the 
Bible. If Paul's spirit was stirred within him when he 
saw the Athenian altar to the unknown God, should not 
the Church be awakened when she sees philosophy, riper 
than Atheism, questioning the existence of the Creator, 
amid the most sublime demonstrations of his power, and 
repudiating his mercy amid the most persuasive exhibi- 
tions of his love? Christianity should walk hand in 
hand with Science, through all her green and sunlit 
paths, teaching her to say with increased emphasis, at 
every ascending footstep, "Great and marvelous are thy 
works. Lord God Almighty," and responding herself in 
that other and nobler strain, "Just and true are thy 
ways, thou King of saints." She should stand side by 
side with her upon the loftiest summits; and as Philoso- 
phy, pointing to the newly-discovered sun, exclaims, 
^'Hail, holy light!" Christianity, pointing beyond the 
stars, to that higher and holier light, whence stream, 
throughout the universe, the beams of righteousness, 
should cry out, "Halleluiah! halleluiah! the Lord God 
omnipotent reignethi" And that she may thus make 
the regions of science vocal with praise, she should have 
the discipline and the acquisitions of the college. Breth- 
ren may say, let other Churches attend to science — be it 
ours, like our fathers, to preach salvation. Our fathers 
did not merely do this. Witness Clarke, and Watson, 
and Benson, and Bunting. Circumstances, too, have 
changed since the days of our American fathers. Meth- 
odism can no longer, like the wild ass free, scorn the mul- 
titudes of the city, while she makes the wilderness her 
house, and the barren land her dwellings. 

5. It is the duty of the Church to resist the encroach- 
ments of Romanism. I am, by no means, disposed to 



174 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

bring railing accusations against '^Mother Churcli;" 
rather would I apologize for her. She has come down 
through ages of darkness and channels of corruption, 
what wonder if her sight be weak, her garments defiled? 
The following propositions will, however, command a 
ready assent even from the most liberal, enlightened Chris- 
tian charity, namely: That Romanism substitutes faith 
in* the Church for faith in Christ; reduces faith itself 
from fiducial trust to mere assent; prevents the growth 
of her people in grace, by withholding the ^^ sincere milk 
of the word;" weakens the authority of Gospel precepts, 
by her practices of indulgence and absolution; incum- 
bers the simple ordinances of God with complex ceremo- 
nies of man, and grasps at the scepter of the world, by 
assuming to take its conscience into her holy keeping. 
And, although in this country the principles of Roman- 
ism are modified by the progress of the age, the spirit of 
free institutions, and the influence of surrounding Prot- 
estantism, yet, we have every reason to believe that, 
should she ever gain the ascendency in this country, her 
principles would assume their original shape, and work 
out their legitimate results. That she is striving for the 
ascendency, there can be no doubt, and that she aims to 
compass this end by becoming the presiding genius of 
American education, seems equally clear. When once 
she allures the youth to her halls, " JReli(/ioni et artibus 
sacrum," she begins to spread her vail over his eyes. 
And this is easy; for she directs his studies, closes up 
his communication with the world, wins his confidence 
by kind attentions, enchants him with her imposing cere- 
monies, and alarms him by gradually pressing upon his 
immature mind her favorite dogma, "salvation in the 
arms of the Church only." We blame her not for this : 
her principles demand it. But shame on the Protestant- 
ism which says those principles are from hell, yet stirs 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 175 

not to counterwork them. The vigorous, youthful mind 
of these United States will be educated; and if it find 
no provision for this purpose in Protestant Churches, 
what wonder if it turn to holy Mother? That Univer- 
sity will stand while nations are overturned. If Meth- 
odism falter in its support, and finally forsake it, Roman- 
ism will come to its relief; and gladly would she now run 
up those winding stairs, to nail the wooden cross to yon 
dome. God hide me from such an hour. But what have 
I lived to see? Methodist youths within the walls of 
Catholic nunneries and monasteries, for the sake of cheap 
Latin and Greek ! And what may I live to see ? Those 
same young men and women returning home with golden 
crosses upon their bosoms, to scorn the religion of their 
dying and broken-hearted parents, while the sighs upon 
every breeze ask, what is the reason? And the silver in 
the coffers answers, it is not with me; and the barns, 
pressed out with new grain, and the cattle upon a thou- 
sand hills respond, it is not with us. 

What a contrast does the policy of Rome present to 
ours ! .Shall Methodism be like the ostrich, which God 
hath deprived of wisdom, and which leaveth her eggs in 
the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth 
that the foot may crush them, or that the beast may 
break them? Is she hardened against her young ones, 
as though they were not hers? Romanism, like the 
eagle, ''mounts up and maketh her nest on high; she 
dwelleth and abideth on the rock — upon the crag of the 
rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh her 
prey, and her eyes behold afar off. 

6. It is the duty of the Church to occupy the mission- 
ary fields which the Divine providence is opening. And 
how extensive are these fields ! The isles of the sea wait 
for God's law; India offers her immense population to 
unembarrassed Christian enterprise; Egypt, Persia, Tur- 



176 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

key, and Arabia, are yielding to tlie advance of Christian 
civilization; China, separated, for ages, from the Chris- 
tian world by an impenetrable wall, has suddenly pre- 
sented defenseless borders, and invited the armies of 
Zion to the conquest, at once, of half the human race; 
and x\frica, already illumined at her northern and south- 
ern extremities, by reflection from Europe, and irradiated 
on her western border by the dawn of a Gospel morning, 
turns a hundred gates upon their golden hinges, opening 
the paths of her interior mountains to the feet of ''him 
that bringeth good tidings." How shall we respond to 
these trumpet calls? Will the benighted millions be 
converted unless they hear? And how shall they hear 
without a preacher? and how shall they have preachers 
unless some be sent? and whom shall we send? Men 
with suitable qualifications, surely. What are these? 
Piety and a call from God, are a sine qua non in relation 
to the minister; but something more may be necessary. 
As the Bible must be translated, stupid millions aroused 
and enlightened, the rising generation trained and edu- 
cated, the captious Brahmin met and confounded, and 
the hollowness of a venerable and gorgeous philosophy 
exposed, surely, in a world, and under a dispensation, 
where God works according to immutable laws, a disci- 
plined understanding, a taste for study, and a knowledge 
of the principles of language, and the laws of the human 
mind, are indispensable. If, therefore, the Church needs 
missionaries of such qualifications, she is bound to erect 
colleges, where they may be obtained : not that she may 
make missionaries, but that she may make men, whom 
God may make missionaries. 

III. The community at large is interested in sustaining 
this college. Colleges are barriers to many of the great- 
est evils which threaten this Union. We instance a few : 

1. Avarice. This has prevailed in all ages, and has 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 177 

generally increased with the progress of civilization. It 
is more to be feared in a republican than a monarchical 
government. Rome and Carthage may trace their de- 
struction to it; and our Union, which, in her infancy, 
imitated the early virtues of those ancient states, seems, 
prematurely, to be following the steps which led to their 
decline. 

We who boast our independence, bow the pliant knee 
to King Money, who commands more respect in free 
America than royalty itself in monarchical Europe. Nor 
is this tyrant a discerning one. Although he sometimes 
patronizes virtue, and promotes learning and religion, he 
more frequently is the forerunner of luxury and effemi- 
nacy, the companion of vice, and the refuge of crime. 
We see him often silencing the pulpit, swaying the halls 
of legislation, corrupting the bench, and even cutting the 
rope of criminal justice. Well has inspiration written, 
"The love of money is the root of all evil" — itself 
neither good nor evil, and, when properly employed, a 
great blessing, yet, when it commands the heart, an all- 
comprehending curse. The nation, as the individual, 
that covets money, " falls into temptation and a snare, 
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown 
men in destruction and perdition." The speculations of 
the past ten years are a fearful proof. What shall arrest 
this growing evil ? The only effectual barrier is the Gos- 
pel ; but auxiliaries should not be despised, more espe- 
cially since 'Hhe God of this world blinds the minds of 
them that believe not, lest the light of the Gospel should 
shine unto them." Among these auxiliaries is the col- 
lege. The common school may stimulate the desire for 
money, by furnishing abilities for its acquisition, but the 
college bears us above the region of utilitarianism, to the 
land of the fair and the pure, where men drink of the 
Pierian spring, not shallow and intoxicating draughts, 



178 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

but deep and sobering ones. Learning, by enlarging the 
understanding, enables us to make a proper estimate of 
the purpose of life; by furnishing subjects of pleasing 
and profitable meditation, it allays our anxieties in pros- 
perity, and, by afi'ording elevating and tranquilizing 
amusements, it moderates our sorrows in adversity. It 
refines the taste, and thus excites disgust at unworthy 
occupations and disproportionate desires. It weakens 
the influence of that part of our nature which we have 
in common with brutes, by stimulating that which we 
have in common with angels. It diminishes the charms 
of our outer possessions by broadening and beautifying 
our inner. The scholar finds within himself a world of 
light, where he can survey the Coliseum, tread the Pan- 
theon, stand upon Mars' Hill, or muse within the Porch, 
the Academy, or the Lyceum. Here he can study meta- 
physics with Aristotle, languages with Plato, mathemat- 
ics with Euclid, and philosophy with Socrates. He can 
soar and sing with Homer, sail the seas with Caesar, and 
conquer the world with Alexander. Learning dimin- 
ishes the attractions of business by increasing the attrac- 
tions of nature. As the scholar walks abroad, the flow- 
ers of the field discourse sweetly in his soul's ear; every 
mineral beneath his footsteps seems his own familiar 
friend, and every animal in his pathway speaks volumes 
in accents which he understands. Truth springs out of 
the earth to meet him ; righteousness looks down from 
heaven to smile upon him; the winds break forth around 
him into melody; the universe becomes to him a temple; 
and, as he swells its worship and song, tell him of the 
money-changers, and you provoke him to make a scourge 
of small cords. There may be scholars who are mean 
and worldly, but they are so in spite of the tendencies 
of learning. Few of the truly-learned are inordinately 
pursuing wealth. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 179 

2. Another evil which threatens our nation is, her po- 
litical conflicts. The patronage of the President, always 
great, has, at length, become alarming, and the scramble 
which it encourages may yet tear the government in 
pieces. It is easy to see that corruption and overthrow 
await any republic in which the elections are a strife for 
spoils. What is the remedy? Patronage is essential to 
administration, and if transferred to the senate, or any 
other co-ordinate branch, we should, probably, have more 
corruption with less responsibility. Colleges have a tend- 
ency to correct this evil by increasing the intelligence 
of the people, and diminishing the number of aspirants 
for office. Who are such ? Not successful professional 
men; they scorn the demagogue. Not the philosopher; 
he who can number and weigh the stars can be readily 
reconciled to a limited dominion over the creatures of a 
day. His '^promised wonders,'' visions of past and pres- 
ent worlds, have composed his mind "into the calm of a 
contented knowledge." He shouts not in the maddened 
crowd. Who, then, are they that clamor for office ? 
Quacks, pettifoggers, theological experimenters — mere 
mental cripples, who, being unable to live by professional 
tricks, resort to political ones. Establish colleges numer- 
ous as society demands, and you will fill the professions 
with men who, pursuing their avocations with credit to 
themselves, and profit to the community, would scorn to 
bow where '^ thrift may follow fawning." True, we have 
scholars in public life, but they generally occupy a high 
station, which they rarely seek, and reluctantly fill. 

3. Another national evil we have to dread is, the 
tendency of our government to usurpation. The object 
of the framers of our Constitution was, a government in 
equilibrium, tending neither to consolidation nor disun- 
ion. When they had completed their work, there were 
distinguished statesmen who pronounced it a rope of 



180 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

sand. Had they lived to this day, they would have 
found the rope not very sandy. We have trying times 
ahead. Look at our political horizon ! I see a cloud of 
war rising in the west; I behold a whirlwind coming 
from the east; "I perceive a storm, big with thunder 
and lightning, gathering in the south, which, wherever 
the hurricane shall carry it, will fill all places with a 
shower of blood. '^ "We need, in the vessel of state, pi- 
lots such as Pericles — marines that have mused at the 
Pass of Thermopylae, and the Bay of Salamis, or read 
epitaphs on the plains of Marathon. We need com- 
manders like him who 

" Wielded, at will, the fierce democracy, 
And fulmined over Greece to Macedon, 
And Artaxerxes' throne." 

Where shall we look for them ? Go ask history who 
have been the asserters of liberty. Who burst the 
chains which had bound the civilized world in a bondage 
of ages? The classical Luther. Who, from time to time, 
resisted the encroachments of monarchy, and hedged 
thrones about with constitutional restrictions ? Who 
was John Hampden, that rose alone, ^' the argument of 
all tongues," in resistance to taxation by prerogative, 
and at whose voice, when an appeal was made to arms, 
ten thousand flaming swords leaped from the thighs of 
freemen ? Who first resisted taxation without represent- 
ation ? Wherever an argument was to be made, or a 
battle to be fought, there were the sons of Yale and Har- 
vard. Who signed the Declaration of Independence? 
All graduates but ten, and they scholars. Who framed 
the American Constitution ? Its principles were drawn 
by classical scholars, through ancient languages and from 
ancient forms of government. The spirit of the college is 
the spirit of liberty. From those halls we hope to send 
out a phalanx hostile, terrible, destructive to the hosts of 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 181 

political corruption. Let demagogues and despots oppose 
colleges — 'tis fitting they should; but the patriot and the 
statesman will rally to their support. 

Though the village, the Church, the community, be 
deeply engaged in erecting the University, it is necessary 
to make a further inquiry; for unless God build the 
house, they labor in vain that build it. Better lay our 
foundations on the earthquake, than without his bless- 
ing; but this, we trust, we have. Christianity has al- 
ways found learning an important auxiliary. It was 
planted by men of extraordinary and supernatural schol- 
arship ; it flourished in the first ages under the labors of 
Clemens, Origen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine — men 
of the ripest learning; it was revived by Wickliff'e, Me- 
lancthon, Calvin, Knox, and others — as profound in phi- 
losophy as in piety; it has been spreading in the latter 
days under Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards, Witherspoon, 
Fisk — as celebrated for literature as religion. Piety 
without knowledge often degenerates into superstition, 
enthusiasm, or heresy. That we may have learning with- 
out religion is true, and that it may prove a curse as it 
did in revolutionary France is also true; but that relig- 
ion makes no great progress without learning is a propo- 
sition equally clear. Then the Divine blessing must 
be upon the means of its promotion. The college 
teaches truth — -froiyi God, leading, unless perverted, to 
God, and, like God, eternal — dwelling in light. We 
have laid our corner-stone in prayer, we are carrying on 
our work in faith, and we hope to bring forth the cope- 
stone with shouting. May we not expect revivals '. If 
not, we shall be less fortunate than any other Christian 
college. If we have God's blessing, though we must 
work with the sword in one hand and the trowel in the 
other, we shall complete our structure. 

I have no time to notice objections; but when we ap- 



182 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

peal for support, how often are we met with this : The 
college is important, but it is designed for the rich, let 
them found and sustain it ! A great mistake ; the rich 
can have colleges in their own houses, or send to Europe. 
It is the poor man that the college specially blesses. One- 
half the pupils of our colleges are the sons of the poor; 
one-third, perhaps, rely more or less upon themselves for 
support. When the college comes into a place, let the 
2)oor utter their voice and clap their hands on high. 
Look yonder ! those halls are hung with tapestry, those 
glasses sparkle with vermilion, those floors are spread 
with carpets of Turkey's richest dye; there appetite is 
sated, sense entranced, and passion frantic with enjoy- 
ment ; but, lo ! the pestilence that walketh in darkness 
stands within the portals. At midnight a cry is heard, 
the pillow of down groans, terrors take hold of the house 
like waters, and, ere the cock crows thrice, the master 
of that mansion is numbered with the shrouded dead. 
Scarce are his remains interred, when a new grief comes 
upon his youthful widow. She learns that his estate is 
insolvent, and, kneeling, trusts in the Father of the fa- 
therless, and the widow's God. A few friends procure 
for her a neat cottage on the common, and her father be- 
stows upon her a small annuity. And now her chief care 
is her sons. Musing in the serene evening, she observes 
the light streaming from the college dome. Suddenly an 
inward light flashes on her mind : "Kiches take to them- 
selves wings and fly away," and 'Hhe friends they bring 
depart with them. Knowledge and virtue are the true 
and enduring riches." She forms her resolve, dismisses 
her anxiety, and for once the pallet of straw is soft to her 
temples. The next morning, seated before her open 
Bible, she calls up her rosy-cheeked boys, folds an arm 
around each, and impressing a kiss, first upon the lips of 
one, and then upon the cheeks of the other, says, "My 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 183 

sons, ^over and friend hath God put far from me, and 
mine acquaintance into darkness/ my riches have dis- 
solved as dew, my heart is weaned from earth, and I have 
no wish to live but for your sakes. The dread of rearing 
you in ignorance and poverty has been too painful for 
me; but, look! yonder is the college; its doors are open 
to the poor, its honors free to the fatherless. The cost 
of collegiate education consists mainly in the expense of 
board; the danger of it in the absence of parental care; 
but, in the midst of our calamities, we are fortunate ; for 
our location gives us advantages over most of the wealthy 
fiimilies of the land. Go, my sons; be the joy of your 
widowed mother; struggle with the sons of fortune; let 
your riches be the immortal riches of the mind; so shall 
ye be my jewels." Years revolve, and, on a bright sum- 
mer morning, an immense crowd fills the spacious chapel 
to witness commencement exercises. Who is that 
sprightly youth ? It is Governor M.'s son. And who 
is this? It is Secretary W.'s son. This is an excellent 
speaker, who is he? It is Judge B.'s son. Lastly, there 
steps forth upon the platform a pale-faced, black-eyed, 
plain-dressed youth ; his knees gently tremble as he 
stands a moment a mute spectator of the crowd, and a 
blush mantles his blanched cheek. A breathless silence 
pervades the assembly, as they mark his modest mien, 
and the angelic amplitude of his forehead, concealed, in 
part, by careless ringlets. Presently he opens his golden 
mouth, and charms the audience with the dulcet melody 
of his voice, the harmony of his periods, and the majesty 
and authority of his thoughts; and now mark how the 
godlike light flashes from his eyeballs ; how the respira- 
tion hurries; how the veins of the temple swell; and 
how the voice rises to majestic fullness, as he bears his 
audience aloft to the highest regions of eloquence. As 
he takes his seat, a rustling is heard, as when the leaves 



184 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

of the forest are swept by the breeze, and from bench to 
bench goes the inquiry, in louder and still louder whis- 
pers, Who is that? Presently all eyes are turned to a 
widow in that corner weeping tears of joy. The band 
strikes up "Hail Columbia," and all weep with her 
And now the audience are dismissed, mark her as she 
trips over the commons, borne up on the right and on 
thft left by her sons; you would think her aged feet 
were winged. And now, that the evening shades have 
gathered around her, and she kneels, in her humble cot- 
tage, between her sons, in solemn prayer, what think you 
are the first words that burst from her grateful lips? 
Why, " The lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places, 
and I have a goodly heritage." 

The post of instructor in college is, by no means, an 
enviable one. The compensation, small; the honors, 
after death; the labors, arduous and incessant. I know 
no employment more heart-trying, spirit-wasting, health- 
destroying. Were all students amiable, talented, and 
pious, they would reconcile professors to their lot; but, 
alas ! in this land, children are rarely trained by parents 
in the way that they should go ; still we welcome them 
with hope ; we spurn not, without trial, the surly, proud, 
self-willed youth ; we throw around him arms of love, 
pour into his ears the voice of entreaty, and bedew his 
cheeks with the tears of fraternal sympathy; we read to 
him the commandments of God, preach to him Jesus 
and the resurrection, bear his name to the throne of 
grace, and often, in watches of the night, when deep 
sleep falleth upon man, we see the terrible vision of his 
danger, and our pillows can not bear up our aching heads. 
Why, then, do men leave the word of God to serve col- 
lege tables ? Men, called to preaeh, have qualifications 
to influence mind that others have not, and surely the 
highest abilities for operating upon the human soul are 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 185 

needed in the college. I have no fear that I am out of 
my path. I have accepted my appointment from a sol- 
emn conviction of duty, not, however, arising from a 
sense of superior qualifications for it, but from the im- 
possibility of obtaining any other incumbent. I expect 
to retain it till disease materially impairs my abilities, or 
the post can attract superior ones. 

Brethren, in behalf of myself and my colleagues, I 
say, " Pray for us." Gentlemen of the faculty, suffer a 
word of exhortation : We are in the midst of death ; 
sickness has recently reminded us of our frailty ; let us 
labor while the day lasts, knowing that the night of 
death is approaching. Gentlemen of the Trustees, we 
look to you for direction, sympathy, and support. 

Young gentlemen of the institution, second our efforts 
to cultivate your minds, your manners, and your hearts. 
Show that the retreat of the Muses purifies, humanizes, 
exalts, and leads to God. So shall your Alma Mater be 
like an angel standing in the sun — radiating long streams 
of mingled earthly and heavenly light to distant points 
and remote ages. 



16 



186 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



PHILOSOPHY, in its widest acceptatioiij denotes the 
sum total of systematic knowledge, but in its ordinary 
use is limited to the study of natural objects. The 
methods adopted in its pursuit vary according to the de- 
gree of mental cultivation, the extent of knowledge, and 
the genius of the people. These methods are greatly 
diversified among our heterogeneous population. Let us 
notice the extremes; namely, that of exclusive observa- 
tion, and that of exclusive speculation : the former is 
often denominated the practical philosophy, the latter 
the speculative. To the first we are prone in the morn- 
ing of life. Youth is the period to see, and feel, and 
leap; to interest ourselves with particulars rather than 
generals — with matter rather than spirit — with things 
rather than signs — with diagrams rather than symbols. 
This, too, is the philosophy of rude ages. A nation's 
primitive songs are addressed not to the reason, but to 
the imagination and the heart; and a people's primitive 
religion seems to be reached by the scafi"olding of ex- 
ternal objects. The savage contemplates leading truths 
through visible signs, as God through the sun, Prov- 
idence through the sacred hawk, or the resurrection 
through Osiris leaping as a new-born Orus into the arms 
of his mother Isis. Hence God taught man at first 
through the senses, walking visibly and talking audibly 
in the green walks of Eden; conversing with patriarchs 
beneath the shade of elms, and accepting praise in the 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 187 

incense of smoking altars : lie instructed in righteous- 
ness by a devouring deluge, and in the doctrine of im- 
mortality by an ascending prophet in a chariot of fire. 
Even when he gave law it was on tangible tables and 
amidst thunder and lightning. The same thing is seen 
in the history of education. A nation takes her early 
lessons in singing, numbering and observing the skies; 
she learns not to analyze, classify, reason, and smooth her 
speech till she has made considerable advances to ma- 
turity. This is the philosophy of uncultivated minds 
whose education and worship must, as a general thing, 
be chiefly by forms, and colors, and sounds. 

It is not my intention to discuss this subject at length, 
but merely to point out some of the errors of these ex- 
tremes. 

And, first, that of the practical philosopher. 

He is in danger of many errors, among which are the 
following : 

1. He makes observations with too much credulity. 
^'I saw, I heard, I felt,'' he cries; ^^can my senses de- 
ceive me?" It is possible they may. ^'I saw the jug- 
gler," says the child, "fire a gold watch from a pistol, 
and, after shattering it to fragments, instantaneously 
restore it to all its beauty and perfection;" but you 
know the child did not see this. Passion has its influ- 
ence upon perception. 

" what a world of vile, ill-favored faults 
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year !" 

So, too, imagination. You saw a ghost as you came 
through the graveyard; you could not be deceived: the 
countenance, the white robe, the uplifted hand, were all 
so plain. Did you, however, expect to see one? If so, 
your fancy may have dressed a stump in the habiliments 
of the phantom. So, too, with the prevailing tone of 
mind. For illustration take the following story from Ad- 



188 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

dison : "'I see/ says the susceptible young lady, as she 
looks at the moon through the telescope, ^two lovers con- 
versing sweetly.' ^No/ says the parson, as he puts his 
eye to the instrument, Hhey are two church steeples in- 
clining to each other.' " Our conceptions, as well as 
sensations, may mislead. Sometimes they are so vivid as 
to pass for perceptions; as is often the case with the 
artist who draws an absent object with a temporary be- 
lief of its presence. 

2. He does not sufficiently accumulate facts before he 
draws his conclusion; he is prone to think that an ante- 
cedent and a consequent stand to each other in the rela- 
tion of cause and eflFect. In ancient times diseases were 
accounted for by the aspects of the stars. So in our own 
times, when a comet is succeeded by war, the post hoc 
is frequently taken for the p?'oj)ter hoc. Allied to this is 
another error, that of overlooking where there are several 
antecedents, some which may have had an influence in 
producing the result. In experiments where all the 
causes operating are cognizable by the senses, a single 
experiment is sufficient to authorize a general conclu- 
sion : as when in a glass retort we bring an oxyd and an 
acid in contact and produce a salt; but in the science of 
mind, of meteorology, of medicine, etc., where a thousand 
unobserved causes may exert an influence, we need a 
large accumulation of facts to draw a general principle. 
In cases where there are many causes operating to pro- 
duce a result, we may assign to some one an undue share 
of influence- Even where there is but a single remedy 
we may err in considering it a cause. If one should ap- 
ply a ^^poor man's plaster" to a gouty extremity, and 
find relief, ten to one he will say, "'Poor man's plaster' 
cured me of gout ; therefore, it will cure every body else 
of gout." Suppose we admit the premises, we must not 
hastily accept the conclusion. Different human systems 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOTHY. 189 

are not like different pieces of the same metal, nor the same 
system at different times. He who in health might bear a 
bowl of champagne, might, when half starved, be intox- 
icated by the same quantity of chicken broth. So with 
the human mind. Bishop Watson compares the geologist 
to a man seated on an elephant, and determining the 
whole organism of the animal, and all its various functions, 
from a critical examination of the skin. We have reason 
to believe that the Bishop was hardly just to the geolo- 
gist; but what would he think of certain philosophers 
of our day, who determine all the inclinations, the tem- 
pers, the capacities — who even gauge the faith, elimi- 
nate the character, and predict the fortunes of an im- 
mortal man, by a slight inspection of only the top of his 
head? 

3. A third error of this philosopher is this — he does 
not sufficiently compare facts with similar facts. It may 
happen that a Gipsey correctly describes the past and 
predicts the future fortunes of a maid. Aided, as such 
a one often is, by previous information, answers to lead- 
ing questions, and the human countenances around her, 
it were strange if she did not sometimes make shrewd 
guesses. But it frequently happens that in attempting 
to do so she makes woeful blunders. How natural to 
seize and magnify the correct guesses, while we overlook 
the incorrect ones! Wonder excites and warms the 
mind, making it easily impressible; the truthful sug- 
gestions exciting wonder sink deep, while those which 
are not so, and, because according to our expectation, are 
received in a cool state of mind, make but little impres- 
sion. Hence the celebrity of quacks and the success of 
nostrums, both physical and metaphysical, religious and 
political. If we compared failures with cures, alas for 
them ! 

Some are perverse enough to collect facts on one side 



190 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

of a question only. A frail old gentleman in Kentucky 
contracted a great prejudice against the Baptist Church, 
many of whose ministers he had encountered in pro- 
tracted, and not very kind controversy. Determined to 
prove that Baptists were a bad people, he procured a 
large blank book, and had it labeled, ^^ Scandalous Acts 
of the Baptists;" and whenever he heard of anything 
mean connected with the people of that persuasion — and 
he was not slow of heart to believe — he put it down in 
his record. Of course, he soon filled it, and might just 
as soon have filled it with the scandalous acts of the 
Methodists by a similar process. Thus arises much of 
our sectarian prejudice. 

Many of our popular superstitions are sustained in the 
same way. A man, learning that Friday is an unlucky 
day, marks every instance of ill luck which he observes 
on that day, and soon finds them legion; and he can not 
be persuaded to commence a house, an oration, or a poem 
on that day, and, perhaps, looks with suspicion upon 
every friend to whom he is introduced, and prosecutes 
with hesitancy and inefficiency every enterprise, however 
good, which Providence may thrust upon him on a Fri- 
day. If he have been so imprudent as to have selected 
Friday for his birthday, his life is one constant distress. 
The proper cure for such a case is to assert stoutly that 
Friday is a lucky day, and set the mind on collecting 
the instances of good fortune — for example, the discovery 
of America — that have happened on that day. This is a 
counter fallacy. In each case there is a false premise 
assumed ; namely, that the cases, whether of good or 
bad fortune, that have happened on such and such a 
Friday, are likely to happen on all Fridays. 

Innumerable are the instances of hasty induction in 
this age, which moves with railroad speed. Truth is not 
to be obtained in a hurry. I grant that accident some- 






EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 191 



times grasps it suddenly, as tlie reaper cuts the grain; 
but it is only in the field where philosophy has plowed, 
and planted; and waited for the precious fruit, and had 
long patience for it till it received the early and the 
latter rain. But most persons are impatient ; they rush 
to conclusions, and often rest in such as are unsatisfac- 
tory rather than endure the pain of suspense. This is 
especially the case with such as have never been trained 
to patient, consecutive, fatiguing thought. It usually 
belongs to one who has habituated himself to '^hasten 
slowly" — who has learned to labor and travail in spirit, 
to detect error under its Protean hues, thread argumenta- 
tive labyrinths, resist moral hinderances, and lead captive 
the truth. 

4. Another error consists in not comparing facts with 
principles which throw light upon them. For example : 
here is one put to sleep by a series of passes, and in her 
somnambulistic state she experiences strange psychological 
phenomena, and accomplishes wonderful feats; at once 
the practical philosopher is a believer in ''mesmerism, 
clairvoyance, spirit raps, table turning, etc." He has 
seen with his eyes; he has heard with his ears; and 
having seen and heard so and so, he is prepared to believe 
what others have seen and heard in like manner. But 
are there not certain a priori reasons why the alleged 
facts should be doubted ? The love of the marvelous is 
strong, and under its influence the mind is predisposed to 
deception; it should, therefore, be on its guard against 
deception, falsehood, exaggeration, false perception, col- 
lusion, and legerdemain. Again : are there not certain 
well-settled principles concerning human responsibility 
which should be considered in examining such phenom- 
ena as those referred to ? 

There is scarcely any thing so absurd and unfounded 
as not to have been at some period believed. Anciently 



192 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

diseases were cured by music. Democritus, for example; 
afl&rms that many diseases may be cured by the flute 
when properly played, though he does not tell us how to 
play it. Marianus Capellus assures us that fevers may 
be cured by songs, though he puts in a saving clause, 
that the songs must be appropriate. Asclepiades is 
more definite; he informs us that rheumatism is to be 
cured by the trumpet, and that we must continue blow- 
ing it till the fibers begin to palpitate. This doctrine, 
amusing as it is, prevails to a great extent to this day 
and in this country, though in a modified form — the form 
of a charm — a word the etymology of which indicates 
the origin of the superstition it denotes. In Chili the 
physicians, according to Zimmerman, drive away diseases 
by blowing around the beds of their patients; and as 
they teach that physic consists wholly in this wind, any 
one may graduate in medicine who has learned how to 
blow. The same practice is almost universal in this 
country, although it is chiefly confined to moral and 
political maladies. 

The golden pill wrought wonders all over England till 
it was found to consist of bread. Men once supposed 
that mere external contact with a medicine through 
which an electrical current had passed was sufficient 
to produce its specific effects. They put up their rem- 
edies in electrified vials, and put those vials in their 
pockets, and were ready to depose that castor oil 
thus applied through the vest was purgative, opium stu- 
pefying, etc. 

Witchcraft was once as firmly believed in, and that, 
too, upon the allegation of facts, as that the sun shines. 
We have had witches even in our own state, though I 
suppose we have none now, for in my youth I sold asa- 
foetida enough for that purpose to drive them all out. 
It were easy to multiply cases of this kind, but enough 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 193 

lias been said to put us, when we examine facts, on our 
guard against the infirmities of our nature. 

There are certain well-established laws, both in the 
physical and moral world, which should be kept in view 
in our examinations of natural and mental phenomena : 
the law of gravitation for instance. We should receive 
facts which are inconsistent with it with very great hes- 
itancy. The law of love is as well settled in the moral 
world as the law of gravitation in the natural. How 
striking the answer of a certain great reformer to the in- 
quiring messengers of another: "Go show John the 
things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive 
their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 
and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor 
have the Gospel preached to them." If God is love, and 
the great law of the universe is love, then labors of love 
are the appropriate works of a reformer, and create a pre- 
sumption in his favor. Equally clear is the principle, 
that each man is a separate being, destined to see with 
his own eyes, and blaspheme and pray with his own 
tongue, and to stand up and answer for himself amid the 
fires of the final day. I am aware that we sometimes in 
this day meet with things that are said to come down 
from the other world ; and in reference to these it may 
be supposed that we have no principles in the light of 
which to judge them. I am not sure of that; it is fair 
to presume that other worlds are subject to the same 
general laws as this. It is not probable, if a man gets 
into paradise, that he will desire to run about the earth, 
upsetting tables J and if he should get into another place 
not quite so comfortable, it is not likely that he will be 
permitted to do so. Again : if there be any thing well 
settled in heaven or earth, it is the law of progress— a 
law not limited to democracy, but affecting all things, 
physical and metaphysical; despite all counter currents, 



194 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the world moves onward. Sure as a great good man has 
a future, will that future be to him an advance. If, 
therefore, he send messages from the skies which prove 
him to be a greater fool than he was on earth, we may 
well question the accuracy of the telegraph which brings 
them down. I am aware that facts ought to be received 
in spite of any hypothesis to the contrary or of our in- 
ability to account for them. I know that facts may 
occur above and different from what we have ever before 
experienced; that apparent exceptions to laws may, when 
properly understood, be examples of them ) that facts 
may occur which result from general laws not yet under- 
stood ; that they may occur in violation of laws that are 
understood; but in the last case we must surely suppose 
that there will be sufficient notice given, a suitable 
preparation made, and an end accomplished sufficiently 
important to justify a departure from them. Let us, be- 
fore we bow to a fact, be sure it is a fact. I would not 
discourage observation, experiment, and rational belief; 
but I would not have you discourage caution, reflection, 
and rational doubt. I would not becloud the field of 
physical truth ; nor would I have you darken the region 
of intellectual and moral truth. 

In regard to reported facts, our practical philosopher 
is prone to receive testimony without sufficient examina- 
tion and scrutiny. He should ask. Is it a fact or a 
judgment to which the witness testifies ? When a man 
testifies that he heard spirit raps, he is not a witness — he 
gives an inference. Is his statement full, or are im- 
portant facts omitted? Does he bear witness to a con- 
nection between facts when he should testify to an 
arrangement only? Does he extenuate, exaggerate, dis- 
guise, or modify facts or mingle opinions with them ? 
There are certain principles, too, which are to be borne 
in mind in examining testimony. There is a particular 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 195 

state of mind necessary to enable a man to observe facts. 
Let us inquire wbo the witness is; what has been the 
training of his mind? Nor must his condition or char- 
acter be overlooked. Where does he live ? What has 
he been doing? Is he an inquirer or a convert? Is his 
testimony designed or incidental, separate or concurrent, 
inconsistent or harmonious? Is he an original or a sec- 
ond-hand witness ? Does he expect profit, or flattery, or 
renown from his testimony? What is the influence of 
his facts upon himself? Do they tend to make his con- 
science easy, to break down moral restraint, to overthrow 
principles to which his heart entertains a ferocious- 
hatred, and to facilitate his progress in a path to which 
his steps are already inclined ? What wonder if such 
facts should have free course and be glorified in a world 
which is corrupt and full of violence ! Nor should a 
man fail to examine himself as well as his witness. If 
the statements tend to promote his pleasures or his inter- 
ests, to strengthen his appetites or habits, to foster his 
prejudices or passions, he is hardly competent to determ- 
ine the value of the testimony which supports them. 
If he be not on his guard, his will may rush him forward 
to belief as with the power of the tempest. Nor should 
he fail to examine the character and condition of the 
community in which the statements are believed. The 
human mind is prone to extremes. Is it not true that 
sooner or later indifi'erence succeeds to excitement, 
credulity to skepticism, empiricism to dogmatism, trans- 
cendentalism to sensualism, an era of reckless revolution 
to one of iron despotism, a fashion of allegorizing to a 
fashion of literalism ? He who does not study the relation 
of his country and times to preceding ones, knows not 
the prevailing fashions of mind, and is very liable to be 
misled. We are now, for example, suffering a reaction : 
in philosophy, from scholasticism ; in medicine, from 



196 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

dogmatism; in religion, from enthusiasm witliin the 
Church and materialism -without it. He only who bears 
this in mind is prepared to examine the vagaries of the 
country, and the statements which receive currency 
among its thoughtless masses. Nor should we forget to 
inquire whether there is any counter testimony, I do 
not mean negative testimony. I do not sympathize with 
the Irishman who complained that he was not acquitted, 
though only two witnesses testified that they saw him 
steal the ax, while twenty swore that they did not see 
him. But I would ask whet'*aer there is not testimony 
which disproves that which has been stated? 

5. He does not classify or generalize; he cares but little 
about species or genera; his business is with facts only, 
which he is content to preserve and recall by arbitrary 
associations. Is he an agriculturist ? He is concerned 
only with his own soil and the modes by which it may be 
rendered more productive — what cares he to what class it 
belongs? Is he a physician? He seeks not to reduce 
diseases and remedies to their classes and orders, or bod- 
ily constitutions to temperaments; so he combat the 
symptoms of disease as they arise, he is content. Is he 
a metaphysician ? He studies seriatim the characters 
that come under his notice, without undertaking to ana- 
lyze them, or trace them to leading principles of action. 
Is he a student ? He obtains his knowledge ad rem. 

Thus far we have glanced at errors of investigation ; 
the same philosopher may commit errors of reasoning 
also : 

1. He does not syllogize. True, a philosopher of this 
kind is usually a great reasoner; but then he is not 
much of a logician. He thinks, with Locke, that God 
did not make him a mere two-legged animal, and leave it 
to Aristotle to make him rational ; and, therefore, he 
gives himself no trouble about Aristotle, and contents 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 197 

himself with a logic whicli he got as Dogberry got his 
reading and writing — by nature. And if he can not 
bring his adversaries to terms in any other way, he knows 
he can resort to the ad hominetiij and take the ayes and 
noes, as they do in Congress sometimes. 

There are three steps in making logic easy, and we 
have reached the third. The first was when the good 
mother of science, fearing the influence of free discus- 
sion, decreed that all decisions should be according to 
Aristotle, and that all disputants should defend him, 
right or wrong, under a penalty of five shillings. In 
those days, when a pair of combatants were called on for 
a public exercise, they purchased a set of syllogisms, 
which were then sold like fish, by the string, and de- 
scended, like silver shoe-buckles, from generation to gen- 
eration. These were drawn out from the caps of oppo- 
nent and respondent respectively as the moderator paced 
between them, and settled the controversy in favor of the 
respondent when the strings were both exhausted. Dis- 
putation was rendered more easy by Raymond Lully, who 
invented a machine to reason by hand ; so that you had 
only to turn, secundem artem, the circles, on the borders 
of which were inscribed the questions, subjects, and pre- 
dicaments, as a woman turns her coffee-mill, to work out 
any conclusion you required. But of all reasoning that 
of our matter-of-fact philosophy, which divorces the con- 
nection heretofore subsisting between premiss and con- 
clusion, and reaches its conclusions over a mug of beer 
or a quid of cavendish, as it were atmospherically, is the 
most easy. Endless are the instances of invalid reason- 
ing which are current among us. I can not go through 
the table of popular fallacies, but only give a specimen. 
In all reasoning we compare two extremes with the same 
third. If this third be ambiguous, or used in difi"erent 
degrees of extension, or if something be understood in 



198 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

connection with it in one premiss whicli was not in the 
other, it may chance that the extremes, not being com- 
pared with the same third, are not compared with each 
other. How numerous are the ambiguous words ! how 
rare such as are not so ! If I say, " I am a Democrat," 
I may mean that I am in favor of the sovereignty of the 
people; but you may suppose I use the term in the tem- 
porary and local sense, and, cataloguing all the improper 
acts which have been chargeable upon the political party 
bearing that name, since the days of Jefferson, may seek 
to hold me responsible for many things which I heartily re- 
pudiate. So if I deny that I am a Democrat, I may mean 
that I do not act with a certain political party; you may 
take the term in its etymological sense, and charge me 
with favoring monarchy or aristocracy. If I say I am an 
abolitionist, I may mean that I desire the liberation of the 
oppressed — this is the proper sense of the word — you may 
understand it as the rallying cry of a political party, and 
charge me with advocating rebellion, dissolution of the 
Union, insurrection of the slaves — in short, all the mad- 
ness which the maddest of certain partisans have ever 
exhibited. If, using the term in its technical or tempo- 
rary sense, I deny that I am an abolitionist, then you, 
assuming that I use it in the former sense, may accuse 
me with favoring tyranny, oppression, and the most hei- 
nous form of cruelty. So I am served like the witch 
that was tried by water: if she would be judged inno- 
cent, she must drown ; and if she did not drown, she 
must be burned. This may seem too obviously errone 
ous to mislead, and yet, perhaps, some of the best men, 
in their solitary reasoning, are thus confused. How oth 
erwise can we account for the fact that antagonistic poli 
ticians are so kind to each other in the parlor and the 
Church, and yet when on the political arena are so fierce 
and vengeful? 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 199 

Often men mistake an analogy for a resemblance. An 
argument founded on resemblance is imperfect, one 
founded on analogy is much less so; for analogy is a 
resemblance of ratios. Between the stomach of a swine 
and the stomach of a man there is but little resemblance, 
but there is an analogy. It will not do to argue, then, 
that the effect of a remedy upon the latter will be the 
same as its effect upon the former; yet some have so 
reasoned. There is an article called antimony — the word 
is a corruption of anti-monk, and thus it was at first ap- 
plied. Some of the article in the form of powder was 
thrown from the door of a monastery of German Bene- 
dictine monks, in which Basil Valentine was experiment- 
ing upon metals occasionally. The hogs coming up to 
the door to eat of the offal, swallowed portions of the 
powder with it. Basil thought he perceived in the ani- 
mals an increased tendency to fatten, and attributed it to 
the black powder scattered at the door. Subsequent ex- 
periments confirmed this opinion. Then thus he rea- 
soned, as the stomach of a hog to a hog, so the stomach 
of a man to a man ; then as this black powder is to the 
hog stomach, so will it be to the human stomach. Forth- 
with he mingles it with the food of his brother monks, 
expecting that it would make them as it had made the 
pigs, fat, sleek, and well-favored; but, lo ! it killed them: 
it proved to be pro-hog, but a?i^i-monk. 

Precisely the same kind of reasoning seems to have 
been employed by Mr. Owen. He lays down twelve laws 
of philosophy: 1. That man did not create himself, and 
at birth was ignorant of his organization. 2. That no 
two infants possess the same organization. 3. That or- 
ganization and circumstances mold the individual. 4. 
That no individual chooses his time or place of birth. 
5. That each may receive true or false notions according 
to impressions. 6. That he must believe according to 



200 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

his strongest impressions. 7- That he must like agreea- 
ble sensations and dislike disagreeable ones. 8. That 
agreeable sensations, when protracted, or too rapidly 
changed, become painful. 9. That great progress de- 
pends upon due exercise and culture. 10. That the 
worst man is produced by the worst bodily organization 
and circumstances. 11. That the medium man is pro- 
duced by medium organization and circumstances. 12. 
That the best man is the product of the best organs and 
circumstances. From these laws it results that to perfect 
man we must improve his physical organization ; give 
him food, water, and shelter in proper quantity and qual- 
ity, and at regular and suitable intervals ; and provide 
him with sufficient fresh air, sunlight, and clothing; his 
impressions, then, being agreeable, he will be happy in 
himself, and agreeable to all around him; and being 
thus happy, he will be virtuous. Well, this is all appli- 
cable to swine, and as a hog philosophy it is perfect; 
but when you proceed by analogy from hog to man you 
find it won't work. Mr. Owen tried it, and found it was 
pro-hog, but anti-man; that, however comfortably he pro- 
vided for his fellows, they would not lie down and be 
easy. True, man is an animal ; but he is something 
more. He is indebted to external impressions, but not 
altogether. He has springs within him of which infe- 
rior creatures know nothing; and educate him as you 
may, his fears and aspirations will burst out, and even 
amid your sneers build altars and stain them with the 
blood of victims. Man, I know, is indebted to his organ- 
ization ; but in the most perfect body the heart may be 
out of tune, and, however its chords may be swept, har- 
mony may not issue from its strings. It is a most merci- 
ful circumstance that our erroneous reasoning is often 
neutralized. 

If there is so much fallacious reasoning, how happens 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 201 

it that the world is not turned upside down ? Men act bet- 
ter than they judge, and judge better than they reason. 
An Antinomian may be syllogistic-ally bound to sin, and 
yet be as fearful of sinning as his Pelagian neighbor. A 
Catholic may be under syllogistic necessity to persecute 
even to death, and yet be as harmless as a Protestant. 
An infidel may be under logical bonds to liberality, and 
yet be as shameful a bigot as bloody Mary. Endless are 
the loop-holes of our logic. I may be bound by my prin- 
ciples to go at the risk of life and preach emancipation 
to the slaveholder; but it is easy for me to point to St. 
Paul getting over the walls of Damascus in a basket. 

Sometimes our consciousness corrects us. Some prove 
that men are not accountable thus: Our volitions result 
from our motives; our motives from our circumstances 
and propensities ; and inasmuch as we had no agency in 
the arrangement of the former or the creation of the 
latter, we are neither free nor accountable. Without 
refuting the reasoning, men reject the conclusion. In- 
terrogate the heart: are you like the mill-wheel that 
unconsciously yields to the stream ? or are you self-mov- 
ing and intelligent — able to comprehend the laws which 
govern you and adjust your relations to them? Though 
you dismiss remorse, are there not furies that sometimes 
rattle through the unswept hearth, and rake up the cov- 
ered fires of the conscience ? Do you deny ? Then I 
point to the thighs that have been loosened for sin, and 
the knees that have smitten each other for iniquity; I 
turn to the winds that have borne upon their wings your 
utterances of praise or blame, your accusations of self, and 
your secret prayers for mercy; I point to the laws and 
prisons which embody the feelings of the national heart. 
Do you say all this is the result of wrong education; the 
appeal is not to the head, but to the heart — the universal 
heart? Sophism may make men stoics; but the eyes 



202 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

will weep, the knees will tremble, conscience will make 
cowards of us all. 

Sometimes instinct saves us from falling into the pit 
which fallacious reasoning digs for us. Hume demon- 
strated that there is no such thing as spirit, and Berkely 
that there is no such thing as matter; but the world has 
been jogging along just as well ever since as though it 
had both matter and spirit left. 

But the most usual corrective of fallacy is common 
sense; for although some say that there is no common 
sense, I shall assume that there is a little left. Have you 
never thought it wonderful that clergymen whose creeds 
are contradictories, should form Christian characters in 
perfect harmony and Christian lives of perfect similarity? 
How is it that eminent physicians of contradictory medi- 
cal doctrines, should have about the same number of 
cures and recoveries among their patients? Men will 
never surrender either a primary truth or a practical 
principle because they can not construct a syllogism or 
detect a fallacy in a sophism. Go to the wagoner driving 
his team to market, and give him the argument of Dio- 
dorus, " If any body be moved, it is either moved in a 
place where it is or a place where it is not; but it is not 
moved in the place where it is, for where it is it remains; 
nor is it moved in a place where it is not, for nothing 
can either act or suffer where it is not; therefore, there 
is no such thing as motion." Do you think the poor 
man would unhitch his horses and sit down in despair f 
No; a legion of arguing angels could not persuade him 
that there is no such thing as motion when he cracks his 
whip and sees the wheels go round. 

Notwithstanding all these checks which Providence 
has placed upon fallacious reasoning, it is still true that 
there are innumerable evils resulting from it, especially 
among the young and inexperienced. And there is a 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 203 

way whereby men may be taught to reason correctly and 
verify their conclusions. 

We have glanced at errors in investigation and errors 
in reasoning; there are other errors of this practical phi- 
losophy. It overlooks the ideal ; it chains the eagle of 
the speculative understanding ; it is an earthly, plod- 
ding, craven, careworn philosophy; it never moves 
through the grove with the mien and majesty of an 
angel; it is never transfigured upon the mountain; it 
never throws aside its staff and mantle to ascend the 
heavens; it never darkens the earth by opening upon us 
the excessive brightness of the skies ; it never bedews 
us with a heavenly baptism, nor breathes into us a kingly 
spirit; it has no conception of the process by which 
Newton predicted the combustible element of water from 
its refrangibility, or by which Copernicus, flying through 
the midst of heaven, like an angel with a trumpet, mar- 
shaled into order and harmony the phenomena of the 
starry hosts, or of the steps by which a greater than he 
ascended from the falling apple to the law of the celes- 
tial spaces. It has a lamp to guide our feet through the 
outer world, but none to light our way to the inward; it 
throws its flickering rays over the present and the past, 
but projects no long and spreading sunbeams over the 
distant and glorious future; it concerns itself with forms, 
but sees not the essence; it busies itself with efi"ects 
rather than causes; and when its attention is attracted 
upward along the links of causation, it is unable to gaze 
high enough to see the staple that holds up or the power 
that electrifies the chain : hence it has nothing eternal, 
immortal, invisible, to hold to when it feels the temporal 
and the visible crumbling about it; it is for the most 
part passive and imitative, and when active it merely 
plucks and dries, and analyzes the productions of nature 
without drinking long draughts from her perennial fount- 



204 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ains of thouglit and feeling. It is the philosopliy of 
experience — without intuition or faith, of it we may say, 
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." 
Hence, it lacks inspiration, energy, originality; it turns 
not the marble into man, nor the canvas into history, nor 
the earth into a temple, nor the air into the whispers of 
guardian angels, nor the page into immortal song; it 
leads out no singing martyrs to the baptism of blood or 
the death of fire. It illuminates, but it obscures, too. 
"We may apply to it the words of one of Plato's disciples : 
"The sense of man carries a resemblance to the sun, 
which as we see openeth and revealeth all the terrestrial 
globe; so doth the sense discover natural things, but it 
darkeneth and shutteth up divine." It eschews all that 
is not eminently practical. It sings with Pope, 

" For forms of government let fools contest ; 
Whatever is best administei'ed is best. 
For modes of faith let graceless bigots fight, 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 

It forgets that abstractions are practical. What was it 
that blew Gideon's trumpet and drew impassable lines 
round the exiled David in the wilderness and the city? 
Truth, abstract truth. What was it that in the days of 
the Maccabees filled the mountains of Judea with tri- 
umphant soldiers, who rolled back again and again the 
tide of terrific invasion ? An abstract truth. What was 
it that made Cromwell's lines the terror of Europe, and 
Washington's undisciplined forces the conquerors of 
British troops ? An abstraction — a mere abstraction. 
What is it that is overturning the nations, and spread- 
ing over earth the bloom and the beauty of Paradise ? 
A set of abstract truths — such as that all men have 
equal rights, and that Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners. What profession, trade, or art is not founded in 
abstractions ? 



E X T n E M E S IN PHILOSOPHY. 205 

But there is a speculative philosophy in vogue. It is 
usually developed in advanced age and advanced stages 
of society. Our own country is not fruitful of it; we 
are too busy with outward things. Abstractions float 
about the nation's mind, but they are generally imported 
from Europe, chiefly from Germany — that land which in 
modern times seems to be the favorite resort of the spec- 
ulative intellect. I have not time to mention more than 
two or three of the classes of the speculative philoso- 
phers of the age. 

1. We have the political speculatist, who aims to make 
society perfect by perfecting social institutions: hence 
the communism and revolutionism which so lately over- 
spread Europe like a cholera, and the rage for new con- 
stitutions which has seized the people of the United 
States. The theory is this : Give the people a good con- 
stitution, and they will have good laws ; give them good 
laws, and they will be prosperous; make them prosper- 
ous, and they will be happy; make them happy, and they 
will be virtuous. The old policy was — make the indi- 
vidual right, and the aggregate will be right; the new 
is — make the aggregate right, and never mind the indi- 
vidual. The old philosophy was, '^ Out of the heart pro- 
ceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, 
thefts, false witness, blasphemies;" the new is, Out of 
the lawgivers proceed evil thoughts, etc.; therefore, cry 
these sages, make us lawgivers, and we will purify the 
nation. Let us construct the political machine ; then 
shall the vine yield her fruit, the ground her increase, 
and the heavens their dew; the hire of man and beast 
shall rise, and the people shall possess all things; old 
men shall wear young eyes, and happy boys and girls 
shall "smell April and May'' all through the yes-r. You 
construct a body-politic ! Social institutions are not the 
work of art. Art may, indeed, assist nature ; it may also 



206 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

restrain it. Many a politician glories in a cure which he 
alleges he has wrought by his remedy, when he ought to 
thank the vis medkatrix of the poor body-politic that he 
has not dispatched it. The New Jerusalem can never be 
legislated into being. Make your mountains mountains of 
the Lordj and they shall blossom; make your cities cities 
of truth, and they shall swarm. Man is not passive, but 
active; he can never be raised ah extra ; the progress of 
society is from within outward, not from without inward. 
Make a nation wise and virtuous, and it will shake des- 
potism from the throne as the lion shakes the dew from 
his mane, and it will construct a suitable constitution 
and code as certainly, as steadily, and may be as silently 
as the hive constructs the comb and fills its cells with 
honey. Politicians may hasten this operation; but only 
by removing the restrictions which fetter industry, and 
by crushing the enginery of fraud, and prejudice, and 
slavery; in short, by breaking down the hinderances to 
human progress which they have set up, and allowing a 
more perfect freedom of human action, and a more per- 
fect protection to human right. 

I am not insensible of the influence of both bread 
and freedom upon virtue. I know, too, that independ- 
ence and plenty may only hasten a nation's destruction. 
France in her revolution tried the inverted process of 
perfecting men — that of political machinery. You speak 
of the hinderances to its operation — kingcraft, priest- 
craft, the established institutions of society, and the prej- 
udices of education. But the revolutionists of France 
sweep these away before they begin ; they declare the 
Divine law to be no more, and the Lord's prophet to have 
no vision ; they cause the Sabbaths and solemn feasts to 
be forgotten, and pollute the sanctuary with the vilest 
abominations. Now they can construct a body-politic to 
their heart's content. Mark the result. France hangs 



♦ 
EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 207 

down her head to the ground ; her eyes fail with watch- 
ing; her bowels are troubled; her heart is poured out ia 
the dust. She says, ^^Behold, Lord, and pity! Shall 
the Seine still roll its crimson tide to the sea? Shall 
the heads of orators and philosophers drop down fresh 
blood from the lamp-post every morning ? Shall the fa- 
therless children swarm as the wounded in the streets of 
the city ? Shall virgins and young men fall together by 
the sword ? Shall man slay in his anger and no one 
pity? Shall the day be full of terrors as the night is 
of darkness ?" 

2. There is the moral speculatist. Men are prone to 
believe Scripture if they can divest it of its tendency to 
produce holiness. The fool would believe in Grod were 
it not for his all-seeing eye ; and liberals will advocate 
Christianity if they can divest it of specific precepts and 
eternal sanctions. The moral speculatist comes in for 
this purpose. This is his theory : Virtue aims at the 
greatest good of the universe. Every thing which tends 
to narrow the bounds of our affections diminishes our re- 
gard for the general good : hence, patriotism, gratitude, 
and the family affections should be repressed as unfavor- 
able to virtue. Man should turn from domestic, social, 
national, and ecclesiastical scenes to contemplate the dis- 
tinct, definite, permanent, glorious object, man; and an- 
nul all attachments to individuals, which are changing, 
indistinctly seen, passing away, and of little consequence, 
that he may consecrate himself upon the altar of human- 
ity in general. This is a beautiful theory; and like many 
a pretty model of a machine to produce perpetual mo- 
tion, the only objection to it is that it will not work. 
Man, though a glorious object, is but an abstraction — few 
can perceive it distinctly ; they who do can not sympa- 
thize with it; we can not be moved to act for that in 
which we feel no interest. Nor is this the only diffi- 



JOS 



EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



culty; the good of the whole is beyond our comprehen- 
sion. How can we know what means will promote it ? or 
with what interest could we apply them, after having 
rooted from our breasts the family, social, and patriotic 
attachments, and robbed the heart of its sensibility? 

There is a philosophic speculatist. The type of the 
class is Kant — a man who rarely passed beyond the walls 
of his native city, and was never seen thirty miles from 
its gates. He was as near an abstraction as could well 
be; for, although he lived to a good old age, he was 
never married, except, perhaps, in the abstract. He 
had, however, a double basis for his philosophy — a real- 
istic and an idealistic. His followers have not been so 
wise. Fichte rejects the former, and traces all knowl- 
edge to the latter; the soul, according to him, sits in 
the center of its consciousness, and draws the scenes of 
its subjective circle as the spider spins his web. Schel- 
ling affirms that subject and object are the two poles of 
existence. Hegel brings the poles together, asserting 
that subject and object, thought and being, are one; 
that the Deity is only a process, and this process identi- 
cal with the evolution of ideas in the human mind. 
This is the ultima tliule of the philosophy of the abso- 
lute, which usually envelops itself in a cloud of words, 
so as to remind us of the poet's lines to dullness : 

"Explain about it, and explain, till all men doubt it; 
And talk about it, and about it, and about it." 

It is the reverse of the philosophy of Bacon. According 
to him, if you would form an idea of a man, for example, 
you must see him ; if you would know him physically, 
you must study him anatomically and physiologically; if 
you would know him intellectually, you must mark his 
utterances, and actions, and habits. According to the 
latter, if you would form a perfect idea of a man, you 



EXTREMES IN PHILOSOPHY. 209 

must take him muscles, bones, and brains — substances 
and fluids — all that has form, color, extension, and divis- 
ibility — words and works — entirely out of the way; im- 
agine a vacuum under his hat, and study the man him- 
self standing right up in the abstract. 

18 



210 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



leligi0tis |Jias tl]^ ^uh 0f (BUtutm. 



I 



N mere animal life improvement is traceable to exter- 
nal causes, such as climate, soil, food, shelter, and the 
contour and relief of the country; but in man it is not 
so. We must, indeed, grant that so far as his body is 
concerned, external circumstances have power over him, 
and that through the body they may reach the mind and 
heart; but the limits of this influence are narrow. We 
often find the most perfect animal man very low in the 
scale of civilization, and, on the other hand, the poorest 
physical human frame in union with the most exalted 
moral powers. The region which brings forth the palm- 
tree and nourishes the lion, produces but pigmy men; 
while the temperate latitudes present us with the noblest 
intellects. So far as external circumstances affect human 
character, they operate through the mind rather than the 
body. It is the necessity for toil which a churlish cli- 
mate imposes, that makes the temperate region more pro- 
lific of intellect than the tropical; and the same thing 
would make the frigid more favorable than the temperate, 
but that there is a limit beyond which humanity can not 
well be taxed. To raise up man to his highest elevation, 
he must be operated upon within. What is the surest 
means of so operating upon the soul as best to develop 
and train its powers? I answer, religious truth. Any 
great doctrine may be taken for illustration. We select 
that all-comprehending truth, the beginning and end of 
science — there is a God. 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 211 

Now, I assert that the degree in which this truth is 
apprehended and felt, other things being equal, is the 
measure of a man's power. 1. It is the measure of his 
power to think. He who apprehends God truly has great 
encouragement to think. If we believed that we were from 
the dust and to the dust, our thoughts would be of the 
earth, earthy; a depressing weight would hang upon all 
our faculties; there would be no upspringing to the light, 
no leaping or looking forward beyond the grave; but in 
despair we should look down upon the worm as our 
brother, and the sepulcher as our final home. How dif- 
ferent when one feels that he is the ofi"spring of infinite 
mind — the child of God — destined to immortality and 
eternal progress ! How all the faculties, under the im- 
pulse of such a faith, open as flowers to the summer's 
sun ! How every feeling points upward to things unseen ! 
In deepest perplexity the soul may wait patiently, hope- 
fully — wait for the unfolding of its own powers; for the 
germination of hidden spiritual seed; for the outflowing 
of concealed spices; for the rising of stars in the dark- 
ness; for the dawning of an eternal morning. However 
baflled in its researches, it may continue them with this 
assurance, ^' What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know 
hereafter." If there be one Lord, one law over all 
things, then may we repose confidence in our science : if 
God be immutable, then may we rest assured that our 
acquisitions of truth will never lose their value. As God 
is infinitely wise, we may look steadfastly and confidently 
for order and harmony even in confusion and discord; 
and while we are kept sensible of our deficiency, we may 
also be kept athirst for advancement. We learn to regard 
the whole universe with interest, as the domain of our 
Father; the shadow of his attributes and the scafi'old- 
ing erected to furnish us at once with the means and 
the motives to ascend the heavens. We find in God a 



212 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

starting-point in pursuit of truth; a firm foundation 
for our reasonings; a link to all that is permanent; a 
sky-light without which the temple of truth would be a 
tomb. 

Purity of heart promotes strength of mind. A man 
may have his mind improved without enjoying a corre- 
spondent improvement in the heart; but he can not have 
his heart improved without having his understanding 
enriched. As the heart becomes clarified, prejudice, 
selfishness, and passion decline, and the desire for truth 
grows strong. Now, what motive to purity so great as a 
just conception of God? Take a man from his family 
and place him among strangers, and you greatly diminish 
his moral restraint. Remove him to the frontier of civ- 
ilization, and unless he have unusual moral principle he 
will become reckless; place him among savages, and he 
will grow into a savage; shut him up with brutes, and he 
will become brutish. But move him in the other direc- 
tion, from the less to the more pure society, from the less 
to the greater scrutiny, till he reaches the holiest society 
and the most intimate fellowship of earth, and he be- 
comes greatly improved. Could he be placed in the cen- 
ter of an amphitheater, and all the good of earth and all 
the saints and angels of heaven be ranged around him, 
while every eye was directed to his transparent breast, 
how pure would be his emotions and his aims! But 
what were the gaze of the universe to the eye of God? 
Lafayette, it is said, when immured in his castle prison, 
never looked through the key-hole of his dungeon with- 
out meeting the eye of a sentinel directed upon him. So 
may faith, in the darkest corner of the earth, look into 
the eye of God. 

There is another consideration : mind grows by its own 
expression; but new truth is generally unpopular; it 
must be expressed first in darkness, often in persecution, 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 213 

sometimes in death. Now, the greatest motive to a 
faithful expression of truth is a just conception of its 
great Author. The ancients had their esoteric and exo- 
teric doctrines. The very terms show that they often held 
truth a prisoner; and why? Not so much from want of 
honesty as want of faith in God. 

2. Our idea of God is the measure of our power to act. 
Under the influence of mere passion a man may put forth 
great power; but, like brute power, it is neither long 
sustained nor well directed; for human passion is evan- 
escent; and as it is not guided by reason, its operations 
are imperfect, bungling, and liable to be arrested by 
obstacles, the voice of persuasion, or the checks of con- 
science. I grant that men who rid themselves of all 
fear of the future may become desperate, and, circum- 
stances favoring, may be terrible to the earth; but their 
desperation is that of madness, and the fear which it 
inspires is as fitful. Hercules and Theseus, the great 
heroes of antiquity, are fabled to have moved under the 
direction of the gods. Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, 
Mohammed, Bonaparte, were all under the delusion that 
they were pressed forward by the hand of the Almighty. 
Tamerlane was arrested in his march till he called the 
prophet to his aid. Atilla conceived himself to be the 
scourge of God, and the Huns who followed him thought 
his sword the gift of the Deity and the symbol of tri- 
umph. With Wellington and Nelson the idea of God 
gave overpowering force to their sense of duty. Wash- 
ington fought through the llevolution on his knees. Hu- 
man nature, sensible of its weakness, ignorant of the 
future, and a prey to superstitious fears, can project no 
magnificent schemes, no outsweeping conquests, no long 
marches over bleeding and dying men, till it can find 
authority and strength in some real or supposed divin- 
ity; and the majesty of this divinity is the measure of 



214 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. ^H 

the courage, the intrepidity, the energy which it puts 
forth. If this be so, there is no warrior like the Chris- 
tian. Gustavus Adolphus said, a good Christian always 
makes a good soldier. So he does, if only he be sure 
that his quarrel is right. So said Prince Eugene; and 
both of them were illustrious examples of the remark. 
When a man feels that God is with him, he may do as 
occasion shall serve; he feels that the laws of the uni- 
verse are devoted to his purposes — that the stars in their 
courses fight for him, and he defies a misfortune to over- 
take him. He can fortify himself with a pillar of cloud 
and fire, cross seas without ships, and rivers without 
bridges, encounter walls with rams' horns, rout armies 
with lamps and empty pitchers, and bring down giants 
with a pebble and a sling. What made Cromwell so 
mighty, but the impression that he was the leader of 
God's hosts? What but a sense of the Divine direction, 
protection, and blessing, bore up the Pilgrims on New 
England shores when frosts, and diseases, and savages 
seemed ready to destroy? It is the same feeling that 
bears up the missionary, whether in polar seas or tropical 
islands, whether amid the bears of the wilderness or his 
more terrible enemies, the Pagan priests. He is strong, 
because he feels that he is linked to Omnipotence. 
Whether he encounter winds, or storms, or stripes, or 
imprisonments, or labors, or tumults, or watchings, or 
fastings, or men, or devils, or principalities, or powers, or 
life, or death, they are all his auxiliaries, because they 
all belong to Him whom he serves; and however they 
may aifect him, he feels that he is a victor; for he desires 
to do nothing inconsistent with the Divine will, and he 
says, I can do all things consistent with it. With such a 
feeling, one can chase a thousand men and two put ten 
thousand to flight. It is not often that the Christian 
manifests his superiority outwardly, though he may in- 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 215 

wardly; for "he that subdueth his spirit is greater than 
he that taketh a city." 

The power to endure is also measured — other things 
being equal — by an individual's idea of God. We have, 
I know, noble examples of fortitude in men whose notion 
of God was comparatively low. Codrus, King of Athens, 
when he learned that the Delphic oracle had promised 
success to the Dorians, encamped beneath the walls of 
his capital, provided they spared his life, disguised him- 
self as a woodman and went out to court his death. 
Codes, the Roman, opposed the whole army of Porsenna 
at the head of a bridge, while his companions were cut- 
ting off the communication with the shore. Eegulus 
bore patiently the keenest torments that Carthaginian 
cruelty could invent rather than persuade his countrymen 
to an ignominious peace. Mutius Scoevola put his hand 
into the flames of the altar before his enemy, and held it 
there till it fried off. But in all these, and similar in- 
stances, the mind is under the strong motives of pride, 
vanity, patriotism, revenge, stimulated by the sight, and 
often, too, by the shout of an applauding country and 
the hope of an undying fame, and unchecked by the 
influence of countervailing passion or of reason; for usu- 
ally the acts are performed so suddenly as to give no time 
for the exercise of judgment. How often does the man 
who fearlessly leads his platoon to battle, tremble before 
a mad dog, or turn pale before a corpse, or shrink before 
a single adversary ! How few that would die upon the 
battle plain would be willing to lay down their lives for 
their country, if their sacrifices were forever to be un- 
known, or if they were to endure death upon the scaffold, 
or in a dungeon, or amid the execrations of men ! If 
you would find one able to endure all forms and degrees 
of suffering nohly^ you must find a soul that reposes upon 
the one living and true God. Talk not of suffering war- 



216 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

riors, when you name the noble army of martyrs who, 
through faith in God, stopped the mouths of lions, 
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the 
sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant 
in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, were 
tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might ob- 
tain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel 
mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and 
imprisonments. They were stoned, they were sawn asun- 
der, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They 
wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being desti- 
tute, afflicted, tormented. Here is royal fortitude. So, 
too, when a man is called to suffer bereavement, his power 
of endurance depends upon his notion of God. He who 
has not a just conception of a presiding deity can scarce 
avoid lamentation, murmuring, appalling grief; but he 
who embraces the true idea of the Almighty may say, 
*'Thy will be done/' for he knows that will to be best; 
he knows that all things work together for good; he feels 
that his happiness is drawn from an infinite source, and 
that if all created things but himself were to perish he 
would have enough left. 

It is glorious to be baptized with the baptism of blood, 
and to burn in a martyr's fire; but perhaps even in this 
land of peaceful vineyards and protected fig-trees a Chris- 
tian may die even more gloriously, when, for example, he 
dies in the prime of life with a crown of honor awaiting 
him, with a wife in all the fullness of love and the fresh- 
ness of beauty, and his children uneducated, unprotected, 
prattling, all unconscious of their coming orphanage, 
beneath his pillow, and dies without a murmur in his 
heart, saying, in the full exercise of a ripened reason, 
''Weep not for me; I ascend to my Father and to your 
Father, through the all-prevailing merits of Christ, my 
Redeemer." The severest trials which men endure are 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 217 

sucli as tlie eye can not see, nor the ear hear. The hard- 
est struggles are in the solitude and the darkness, and 
the bitterest agonies are such as no friend but the Crea- 
tor can help us to bear. In these inner conflicts he only 
is mighty to endure and calm to suffer who believes in 
the infinite Spirit, and who relies upon such a promise as 
this, "When thou passest through the waters I will be 
with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow 
thee. When thou walkest through the fire thou shalt 
not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." 
To the Christian, as to the Kenite, it may be said, strong 
is thy dwelling-place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock. 
Macaulay, speaking of the Puritans, says, "The intensity 
of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on 
every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected 
to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had 
lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their 
smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, 
but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had 
made them Stoics; had cleared their minds from every 
vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above 
the influence of danger and of corruption — insensi- 
ble to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain — not to be 
pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any 
barrier." 

And this brings me to remark, thirdly, that a man's 
power to improve is owing greatly to his idea of God. I 
know not why it is so. Perhaps when a man's views are 
bounded by material things his speculative powers are 
checked; his senses having led him as far as he supposes 
he can go, and his desires being limited by time, his 
aspirations after the good and the true are smothered. 
Seeing no friendly power beyond to guide and strengthen 
him in the search after unknown and distant truth, he 

contents himself with present ignorance; and recogniz- 

19 



218 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ing no power to bring liis soul to account^ lie can bury 
his talent without interest or concern. I am aware that 
we sometimes see a mind professedly Atheistic, rising to 
the hights of the universe ; but it is in a country filled 
with other minds from which it has derived its stimulus 
and its speculative habits. As with individuals, so with 
nations. On the pages of history we can trace distinctly 
civilization passing, pari passu, with theology. For ex- 
ample, we see the Jews rising and falling just according 
to their notions of God — down under Chushan Risha- 
thaim, up under Othniel; down under Eglon, up under 
Ehud; down under Jabin, up under Deborah; down 
under Midian, up under Gideon; down under the Philis- 
tines, up under Samuel; down under the backsliding 
Saul, up under David; down under Rehoboam, rising 
again under Asa; down under Ahaz, rising again under 
the good Hezekiah ; down again under Amon, aloft once 
more under Josiah. No depression but what is traceable 
to Balaam and Ashtaroth, or the gods of Syria, or the 
gods of Sidon, or the gods of Moab, or the gods of the 
children of Amon, or the gods of the Philistines; and 
no exaltation which is not traceable to a returning adora- 
tion for the true God. Take a corresponding illustration 
from modern history. England begins to emerge from 
darkness under her beloved Alfred. She falls and rises 
subsequently, according to her theology. The advancing 
corruption of mother Church caused the early lights, 
which had been kindled by her Henry, of Huntington, 
Geoffry, of Monmouth, John, of Salisbury, and William, 
of Malmesbury, to grow pale till, at length, they were sub- 
stituted by the subtilities of scholasticism and the dreams 
of romance. The Reformation came under Henry the 
Eighth, and the country ascended under his reign and 
that of his son, Edward Sixth. It descends again under 
Mary the Papist, rises aloft once more under the illustri- 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 219 

ous Elizabetli; descends again under James, rises again 
under the Commonwealth; descends once more under 
James II, and rises permanently under the crown of the 
Prince of Orange. 

To show that this connection between a correct knowl- 
edge of God and the advancing intelligence of a people 
is not accidental, and that the former is not a consequence 
but a cause of the latter, let it be noted, 1. That the 
type of a nation's civilization seems to depend upon its 
theology. Man, favored with a revelation from God, goes 
forth from his primitive seat on the plateau of Iran: one 
tribe descending in the south-west stretches along the 
fertile valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Under 
the impulse of the primitive religion it speeds its way to a 
glorious elevation, whose monuments are yet to be seen; 
but from the true God it turns to the worship of the 
heavenly bodies, and its mind becomes a cold, grand, 
gloomy one. Another tribe advances to the valley of the 
Nile and soon becomes illustrious; but it worships first 
symbols, then brutes, and its national mind becomes like 
its land, when, smitten with the curse of Moses, "God 
sent darkness upon it and made it dark." Other tribes 
took possession of the plains of India and China; they 
soon put God afar oiF, and there they stand, without hav- 
ing made one step of progress through all the ages that 
have past. Greece received from Phenicia, Phrygia, and 
Egypt the germs of a better civilization. She, too, per- 
verted the idea of the Almighty; but she did not put 
God so far away. Her Olympus was animated, and 
warmed, and enlightened, though attempered with weak- 
ness and deformed with vice. Her mind corresponds to 
her mythology — free, active, progressive, passionate, er- 
ratic. It ascends gradually. The tribes that pass over 
the Caucasus to the north and west, pervert their concep- 
tion of the Almighty into that of rude and bloody divini- 



220 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ties, and tlieir own intellect becomes rude and their 
hearts cruel. 

2. Observe, again, the noblest conceptions of God, in 
every nation, come from the best minds, and mark the 
culminating period of a nation's intellect. The Persian 
mind reaches its zenith in Cyrus — the warrior, statesman, 
and philosopher — a pure theist. Hesiod, Homer, Socra- 
tes have grand ideas of God; these seem to expand as 
the mind of Greece rises till it culminates in Plato, who 
enjoys sublimest visions of the Supreme. The Eoman 
mind attained its highest elevation in Cicero, who had 
the noblest conception of the true God except that which 
is communicated by revelation. The Arabian mind 
reached its summit in him whose poem has been pro- 
nounced the sublimest extant, and whose soul is radiant 
with reflections from the great ''I Am." Well might he 
cry out, "0 that my words were now written; that 
they were printed in a book; that they were graven with 
an iron pen in lead; that they were cut into the eternal 
rock !" Words are worthy to be driven into the granite 
with chisel and mallet when they convey such conceptions 
of God as Job's, The Jewish intellect culminated with 
David, whose soul flutters round the idea of God as a 
sparrow around her nest; whose songs are hymns of 
prayer and praise; who, at midnight, considers the heav- 
ens, the moon, and stars which God has ordained, and at 
dawn sweeps his harp to Him who maketh the outgoings 
of the morning and evening to rejoice; who draws from 
each day and night utterances of divine wisdom; who, in 
his own heart, traces the mind of Jehovah; and who, 
every-where and at all times, is lost in God. "0 Lord, 
thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest 
my down-setting and mine up-rising. Thou understand- 
ost my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and 
my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 221 

For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, Lord, 
thou knowest it altogether. Whither shall I go from thy 
Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I 
ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed 
in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of 
the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 
even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand 
shall hold me." In whom did the English mind culmi- 
nate? Locke, Newton, Milton start up before us, all as 
much distinguished for their reverence for God as for 
their profound intellects. Each one of them rose upon 
the world like a supernal being. Out of each one's 
soul, if soul were divisible, could be cut a world of more 
modern philosophers. Concerning one of them, a French 
nobleman is said to have asked an English one seriously. 
Does Newton eat, and drink, and sleep like mortals? 
Which is the greatest, it may be difficult to say. My 
mind fixes upon Milton. Bacon exceeds him in compre- 
hension, Shakspeare in portraying the human heart, and 
Thomson in depicting nature; but no uninspired mind 
equals him in sublimity. What is the secret of his 
grandeur? It is his awful conception of the Creator. 
In his hights, and depths, and lengths the idea of God 
on all sides round 

" As one great furnace flamed." 

Intimating his purpose to write his great poem, he says 
it is a work '^not to be raised from the heat of youth or 
the vapors of wine, like that which flows at waste from 
the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of a 
rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of 
dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout 
prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all 
utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim 
with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify 



222 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the lips of whom he pleases." Who can forget his open- 
iDg invocation? 

•' But thou, Spirit, that dost prefer, 
Before all temples, the upright heart and pure, 
Instruct me, for thou knowest." 

It was the idea of this Spirit, ever brooding over his 
great soul, that "made it pregnant." Thus he had 
power — to use his own language — ''to imbreed and cher- 
ish in a great people the seeds of virtue and civility; to 
allay the perturbations of the mind and set the affections 
in right tune; to celebrate, in glorious and lofty hymns, 
the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what 
he works and what he suffers to be wrought with high 
providence in his Church; to sing victorious agonies of 
martyrs and saints." Hence it is that his great poem is 
like a temple, and his majestic lines flow over the soul 
like an organ chant. 

It is when the mind approaches the thought of Jeho- 
vah that it attains its highest elevation. This shows that 
it is not the mind that generates the thought, but the 
thought that stimulates the mind. And this is what 
might be expected. No attribute of God that is not 
awfully sublime ; no object sublime but as it resembles 
God. Go over the elements of sublimity and see — hight, 
depth, extent, antiquity, obscurity, power, etc. When 
we have a right apprehension of the Almighty, the 
universe becomes a Bethel, and every truth we learn a 
round of Jacob's ladder. We walk the earth dignified, 
hopeful, aspiring beings. Angels are around us, and we 
catch their inspiration. Examples might be multiplied. 
What production of Thomson's equal to his Hymn to the 
Seasons? He commences it with, 

"These, almighty Father, these are but the varied God;" 

and he ascends till he swells out the full voice of praise: 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 223 

" Sliould fate command me to the farthest verge 
Of the green earth ; to distant, barbarous climes — 
Rivers unknown to song; 

Where first the sun gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beams 
Flame o'er Atlantic isles ; 'tis naught to me, 
Since God is ever present, ever felt 
In the void waste, as in the city full." 

What production of Coleridge to be compared for sublim- 
ity to his Hymn before sunrise in the vale of Chamouny ? 
IIow was he invigorated for the song ! 

" Entranced in prayer, 
I worshiped the Invisible alone." 

His inspiration increases as he advances, till he cries, 

"God! let the torrents like a shout of nations 
Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! 
God, sing ye meadow streams with gladsome voice ; 
Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ; 
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow. 
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! 

Tell thou the silent sky. 

And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun. 
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God." 

If we lay the map of the world before us, it will ex- 
hibit the same result as history. There is but one form 
of religion which recognizes no supreme God — Fetichism. 
Where it is found, animals, mountains, trees, and even 
vessels, weapons, and stones are the objects of wor- 
ship. And where does this prevail? In Africa, that 
continent which would scarce be missed were it swal- 
lowed by the waves ; and in its darkest part — the west- 
ern, eastern, and southern portions — where the human 
mind is a vast Sahara, without an oasis, we find here no 
history, no letters, no alphabet; in many regions no agri- 
culture, nor any arms or arts, but the rudest, and scarce 
any commerce but in human flesh. We shudder as we 
view naked bodies, stupid minds, and passions ferocious 
as the serpents of the wilderness. We scarce know 
where, in the scale of being, to draw the line between 



224 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the lower animals and him who was created in the Divine 
image. We find the same religion in Australia and 
among some of the savages of America; and here, too, 
the same degradation, and mental bondage, and sluggish- 
ness. Asia worships the true God, but has false concep- 
tions of him. This is the land of dreamy intellect, of 
morbid sensibilities, of stationary civilizations. We see 
the conception of God variously modified in its different 
nations, and we mark, as we pass over them, a ripening 
of the human mind in proportion to the approach to a 
right and perfect conception of the Almighty. Lowest 
in the scale, perhaps, we may place the Brahmins. They 
acknowledge a supreme God — Brahm — but they put him 
afar off, and ascribe creation, preservation, and destruc- 
tion to inferior divinities. As might be expected, they 
overthrow his altars, neglect his temples, and leave him 
nothing but the name, while they give their chief adora- 
tion to the god Vishnu and his nine incarnations, of 
which Juggernaut is one. What is their intellectual 
state? So little has been their progress that the descrip- 
tion given of them at the time of Alexander's conquest 
would answer for them now, notwithstanding the influ- 
ence which they have recently received from civilized 
nations, and the frequent infusions of impulsive mind 
which they have enjoyed in the lapse of ages. True, 
there has been some progress downward, for the cruelty 
of the Juggernaut and of the Suttee are perhaps of com- 
paratively recent introduction. The gorgeous literature 
of India is of high antiquity; latterly its mind has been 
like a doomed soil, that produces cockle instead of barley, 
and tares instead of wheat. Next comes Boodhism, 
which overspreads Farther India, the Chinese empire, 
and Japan. This is a reformation of Brahminism. 
While it recognizes an eternal First Cause, it repre- 
sents him as reposing in profound slumber, from which 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 225 

he only now and then awakens to send down some per- 
fected spirits^ that they may make certain necessary 
alterations in the universe. Its milder rites, its purer 
thoughts, its more gorgeous worship indicate that the 
advance which it has made toward a just conception of the 
eternal One, has stimulated into better action the imag- 
ination, if not the other powers of the mind. The better 
class embrace the Pantheism of Confucius, which is the 
established religion of the Chinese empire, and which 
leads the mind to Him in whom " we live, and move, and 
have our being," though it does not sufficiently distin- 
guish the absolute, original being from his outward man- 
ifestations ; still it is an advance from Boodhism toward 
rational Theism, and the mind which receives it is the 
learned and ruling mind of the east. Throughout the 
vast regions of which we have spoken, the conceptions 
of God are indistinct, and mingled with those of nature. 
The universe does not present itself as under the con- 
stant care and control of an infinite mind, who regulates 
all things by wise and immutable laws. Hence, gloom 
and uncertainty pervade the nations. Moreover, the 
Deity is presented to the mind as, to a certain extent, 
jpatient as well as agent, and thus, to the same extent, 
the sense of human accountability is lost. The im- 
mortality of the soul is, for the most part, a mere 
resorption into the eternal One ; hence, the aspirations 
of the heart are stifled. What, then, could be expected 
but fables, and superstitions, and painful apprehensions, 
and rigid mortifications, and a character, in general, 
timid, vain, pusillanimous, slavish? Passing by the 
Sintoism of Japan, and the Shaminism of Siberia — na- 
tions a little below those which we have just left, both 
in their ideas of God and their mental character — and 
also the Guebers of Persia, and of the western coast 
of India — the remains of the fire worshipers — we come 



226 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS, 

to Nanekisin — a mixture of Mohammedism with Brah- 
ininism — professed by the sheiks of India, who put forth 
an activity, energy, intrepidity, such as might be ex- 
pected from the brighter beams of the godhead, which 
the infusion of Mohammedism secures. Crossing now 
the Belur, and looking over the table-land stretching 
westward, with the plains on each side and the desert 
beyond them, and carrying our eye forward, on the one 
side, into Europe, and, on the other, along the western 
border of the Mediterranean, we find the home of Mo- 
hammedism, a faith which, whatever may be said of its 
founder, or its falsehood, embraced and pressed upon 
mankind the eternal truth — there is but one God — a 
truth which Mohammed found in the Bible, and which 
he affected to teach in the same strain as it had been pro- 
claimed by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ, 
whose authority he never called in question. It was a 
truth which, though taught by an impostor, and mingled 
with fiction, infused into men a power of thought and 
feeling before which the nations, weakened by supersti- 
tion and idolatry, were easily crushed. Looking over 
this region, whether we notice the brave, independent, 
adventurous, amorous, story-telling Aff"ghan, or his hos- 
pitable, honest, but sometimes sanguinary neighbor of 
Beloochistan, or the manly, wandering, often predatory 
Tartar, or the vigorous, capricious, and cruel Turk, or 
the gay, deceitful, active, acquisitive, luxurious, scien- 
tific, poetic, polished Persian, or the brave child of Ish- 
mael, fierce and fleet as his war-horse, fiery as the burning 
sands of his wilderness, and generous and patient as his 
faithful camel ; we see, we feel that we have ascended in 
the gradation of mind since we entered western Asia; 
we observe a sprightliness, an activity, an anxiety, a free- 
dom that indicates a greater sense of the dignity and 
responsibility of man. Proceeding into Europe, the 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 227 

light of civilization and Christianity increases as we 
advance, till it shines in meridian splendor; and the 
brightness is in proportion to the power and purity with 
which the idea of God is apprehended. In the south 
of Europe men see God, to a great extent, through 
images, and hear him through saints, and commune with 
him through priests. The mind is fanciful, fickle, pas- 
sionate; in the north it is thinking, independent, vigor- 
ous, resolute, having deep and abiding feeling, and a 
fancy subjected to reason. Let us compare two extreme 
points, Spain and England. Spain — a land of green 
slopes and crystal streams, of gentle winters and refresh- 
ing summers, of silks and olives, of oranges and lemons ; 
yet a land once crimsoned with the Inquisition, and now 
burdened with monks and nuns, friars and hermits, 
brutality and bull-fights. What is the mode of her in- 
tellect ? Pensive, gloomy, indolent. Though above that 
which we have hitherto been contemplating, yet it is far 
below what it should be. The nation without canals, 
railroads, steam-boats, telegraphs, and with scarce a 
light-house on her coast, demonstrates this proposition. 
Let us not be told that all this is because her rivers are 
not navigable and her mountain barriers scarce passable; 
for, during two hundred years, Spain was the mightiest 
power in Europe. 

Let us now turn to England, where man is taught to 
look through nature up to God ; where he is emboldened 
by his Protestant Bible-handling faith to enter into 
direct audience with the Almighty — the land emphat- 
ically of Bibles and Bridgewater treatises. England — 
there she sits, queen of the seas, gathering jewels for 
her crown from every shore, and floating her flag around 
the world in the beams of a ceaseless morning. There 
is no grand conception centering in Olympus which she 
does not realize. Like Juno, she fertilizes the earth 



228 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

beneatli her furrow; like Yesta^ she gathers all nations 
to her hearth-stone ; like Vulcan, she presides over the 
forges; like Neptune, she rules the seas; like Apollo, she 
leads the muses; like Minerva, she sways the under- 
standing; like Mercury, she is the patron of trade and 
the messenger of heaven to the ends of the earth ; like 
Jupiter, she is concerned in the affairs of all mankind. 
These conceptions are not merely realized but exceeded; 
for what is Neptune to the steam-ship, Minerva to the 
press, Hercules to gunpowder, or Mercury to the tele- 
graph? What England is, so is her first-born daughter — 
North America — which exhibits the same superiority 
over southern America that her mother does over Spain 
and Italy. Let it not be said that these differences are 
owing to race. Lead the degraded negro up to the sight 
of the one living and true God, and his soul kindles with 
celestial fire; his mind pants for development, and soon 
his tongue pours forth a melody and an eloquence to 
which his native heathen valley is a stranger. So let the 
Caucasian embrace Paganism, as he has in the valley of 
the Indus, and he sinks into inaction. Nor can climate 
account for the difference; for in every clime, from 
Patagonia to Greenland, from Australia to the Dofrafield 
Mountains, the Rose of Sharon has bloomed with an 
equal beauty and an equal fragrance. Nor can forms 
of government account for it; for the Albigenses, and 
AValdenses, and Huguenots, under the most cruel and 
oppressive despotism, no less than the pilgrims on 
Plymouth rock, by simple faith in God became great, 
and firm, and glorious. Nor are all these causes together 
sufiicient to account for it. Go from Protestant Ulster to 
a Catholic county in Ireland, or from a Protestant to a 
Catholic canton in Switzerland — climate, race, language, 
and government being the same — ^and you pass as from 
the dark ages to the middle of the nineteenth century. 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 229 

To all tliis it may be replied that mind in Protestant 
countries has become materialized; that attention has 
been turned away from the inward to the outward world ; 
that physical science has taken the place of mental and 
moral; that the whole subject and sphere of thought is 
outside of human nature. But is not the cultivation of 
nature an appointed duty of man ? Are not a nation's 
useful and ornamental arts the signs of its intellectual 
energies and the tokens of its progress ? Mind was 
made to act on matter : matter is the ordained mold 
of its conceptions. As God expresses his mind in the 
forms of the visible universe, so must man. The air, 
the marble, the gold, the canvas — all nature stands ready 
to receive the impress of his thoughts, and thereby be- 
come more useful and beautiful. Steam-engines, tel- 
egraphs, temples, gardens, monuments, are but the 
embodiments of the soul's reflections. Has the prog- 
ress of science diminished the moral excellence of men, 
or the increase of activity brought on a decrease of 
creative genius? Are not men wiser as well as stronger? 
more beneficent as well as more capable ? more conscious 
of human dignity as well as of human dominion ? 

Thus we have shown that a nation's idea of God de- 
notes its position in the scale of intelligence; and that 
it gives the type to an individual's and a nation's mental 
character. This grand idea rules the world of mind. 
When it is apprehended in all its power and perfection, 
it turns men gradually into angels, and it holds angels in 
heaven. Be not surprised at this declaration. Simplic- 
ity of causes reconciled with multiplicity of effects is the 
great secret of the Creator. The same principle that 
holds the sun in its orbit bows the dew-laden cup of the 
lowliest flower. The same principle that holds the seas 
in their channels, holds the blood in the insect's veins. 

Some may regard my theme as uninteresting. Not so 



230 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

would Aristotle, Plato, Socrates; not so would Yerulam; 
not so, I trust, do my readers. Never think so meanly 
of your souls as to deny them the privilege of dwelling 
upon the greatest conceivable theme; of feeling the 
great motive which secures obedience to the eternal laws. 
He who created all things by the breath of his mouth, 
and sustains them by the word of his power, should be in 
all our thoughts. What would heaven think should it 
be told that there is a periodical on earth which does not 
write of God? It would point to it as a doomed book. 
What would an angel think if he were invited to earth, 
and allowed any theme but God ? He would tell you that 
this is his only theme — the theme which raises his wings, 
and swells his heart, and tunes his harp, and fills his 
everlasting song — the theme all over his native hills of 
light and glory — the fountain of its eternal Niagara 
of praise, that is like the voice of many waters and 
mighty thunderings; and if it did not suit you he would 
spread his wings and leave you. 

Reader, if my views be correct, you may easily know 
when you have a just idea of the Creator. Ask, does it 
live? does it send throbbing pulses through the breast? 
does it quicken intellect, bind passion, strengthen will, 
string nerves ? does it bring up from the heart, each day, 
a deeper ^^ gloria in excelcis,'" and plant, each night, a 
new Ebenezer? 

Atheism is stagnation. True, in our own days it 
boasts of an anti-theological science; and it trumpets 
this forth in such a way as to show that it never pretended 
to science before; that the world does not expect science 
of it now ; that it is and always has been regarded as in- 
capable of producing any thing but negations. 

There is a Pantheism prevailing. It speaks reverently 
and poetically, and often piously, of God ; but, then, it says 
there is as much of a God in a chair as there is on the 






RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 231 

throne of heaven. What is the effect of such a view? 
If God is matter and matter is God, then, surely, we may 
add, with Pascal, ^'It is no matter whether there is any 
God at all/' There is another form of it which teaches 
that God is the issue of the human soul ; that he is a 
mere process, and that process identical with the evo- 
lution of human ideas. What death to thought, to 
aspiration, is such a doctrine ? Under its influence how 
■■ would a man preach ? As a policeman walks his beat or 
a merchant fulfills his bargain. Never could he raise to 
their feet an audience of French nobility, as did Massil- 
lon ; or spread a flame of holiness over two hemispheres, 
as did Wesley; or excite a people to cry out, "Let the 
sun cease to shine, but let not the lips of Chrysostom be 
sealed. '' Let such a man be placed in the battle-field; 
how quickly would he run before a host, such as Crom- 
well told '■'■ to trust in God and keep their powder dry,'' 
and whom he led out to conflict singing hymns of praise! 
I would exchange that stupefying Pantheism for any god 
in the calendar of the olden Paganism. Better, far, have 
Jupiter, with his thunderbolt, or Neptune, with his trident, 
or Minerva, with her shield and Pyrrhic dance. What 
view does such a philosophy give us of human dignity? 
As it reduces God to a notion^ so it reduces man to an 
atom. He is merely a beast standing on his hind legs, 
and the beast is but a bird with his wings turned into 
fore legs, and the bird is but a fish with his fius 
stretched out, and his scales turned into feathers, and 
the fish but an expanded mollusk, and the mollusk but an 
inflated atom. Behold, then, the original Adam of the 
modern philosopher! What idea of education does it 
suggest? The experience of the world teaches that the 
way to improve man is to bring him in contact with 
superiors : thus, a nation becomes civilized by colonies ; 
a youth becomes learned by means of his master; a man 



232 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

becomes a saint by the power of tbe Holy Ghost; tbe 
saint matures into an angel by beholding as in a glass 
the glory of the Lord. This philosophy would reverse 
the process : it says^ develop yourself, solicit intellect, 
strengthen will, call out emotion. Alas! we have tried 
this long enough to know that "out of the heart proceed 
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications," etc. 

Seeing that we must have a correct idea of the Al- 
mighty, how important is the mirror of his word, in which 
alone we see him a distinct, personal, intelligent, infinite, 
holy, and eternal Being, whose glory the heavens declare, 
and whose name "the mountains and the valleys bless" — 
the King eternal, immortal, invisible, dwelling in light in- 
accessible. It guards the idea of God from perversion 
by forbidding any material representation of it. It 
guards the Divine unity; it guards the Divine inde- 
pendence both of fate and of nature. It exhibits God as 
before all things, as existing beyond the limits of the 
universe ; and though every-where present, not so pres- 
ent but that heaven is his abode, nor so present as he is 
to saints and angels. And though, as the poet has truly 
and beautifully told us, 

"He warms in each, beam, refreshes in eacli breeze, 
Glows in the stars, blossoms in the trees. 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent," 

yet he is himself neither light, nor darkness, nor blos- 
som, nor breeze, nor matter, nor life, but in all, and over 
all, God blessed forever. It presents him in the most 
endearing relations as the Father of mercies and of men, 
and it alone invites us to reconciliation, and communion, 
and fellowship with him. May you, reader, always 
breathe in this deep universe, filled to overflowing with 
God, without ever having a doubt of his being ! Re- 
member the words of Lord Bacon: "I would rather 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 238 

believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and 
the Koran, than believe that this universal frame is with- 
out mind." May the image of God, beheld in the face 
of Jesus Christ, grow more distinct and glorious in your 
minds, day by day, so as to aiFord you a solid rest amid 
all vicissitudes; a constant joy in all your sorrows; a 
hight, and depth, and length, and breadth, both to your 
feelings and your philosophy; and an eternal stimulus to 
your undying energies ! With this view I commend to 
you the holy oracles. They are worthy to be studied for 
their history, their poetry, their philosophy, their pre- 
cepts, and their moral paintings; for who has ever 
reached the stern majesty of Hebrew prophets, or the 
transparent beauty of Christian evangelists? — but chiefly 
do I commend them because they, they only, can anchor 

your souls to the solid rock of a true theology. 

20 



234 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



0nil €i«nti0n» 



ALL agree that the youth of our land should be pro- 
vided with common schools; that common schools 
are designed to educate; that education means develop- 
ment; and that it should embrace the whole man. 

There was a time when the friends of education, in 
their care for the mind, lost sight of the body, forget- 
ful that, however superior the spirit may be to its earthly 
instruments, its outward manifestations are through the 
bodily organs. It is as though the engineer, impressed 
with the distinctness and power of steam, should be un- 
concerned with the machinery by which it is applied. 
Now, however, it is understood that the teacher should 
possess a competent knowledge of anatomy, physiology, 
and hygiene, in order that he may give judicious direc- 
tions in the construction and furniture of his school- 
room; in regulating its supplies of heat, light, and at- 
mosphere; in adjusting the tasks and punishments of 
his pupils, and in superintending their diet and exer- 
cises ; that he should not only be able to give such direc- 
tions, but also satisfactory reasons for them ; to illustrate, 
in a familiar manner, the general laws of digestion, cir- 
culation, respiration, etc., and to show their practical 
application. For want of such qualifications in the 
teachers of other days, many are weak and sickly among 
us, and many regard education through a cloud of gloomy 
and painful associations. Once it was supposed that edu- 
cation consisted in so many Quarters of grammar, and so 



I 



MORAL EDUCATION. 235 



many of geograplij; and so on. Now it is generally ad- 
mitted, that while we teach the child arithmetic, gram- 
mar, geography, civil history, and the general principles 
of philosophy and natural history, we are to bear in 
mind that these, after all, are but means, not the end; 
that the great object of the educator is to teach the 
child to think. Let the pupil form the habit of patient, 
clear, consecutive thought, and you may let him go. 
Thinking J not knowing, makes the great distinction be- 
tween the mind of the philosopher and that of the fool; 
the ability to reason is the measure of mental excellence, 
the instrument of high achievement. 'Tis this that 
scales heaven, and fathoms hell, and compasses space; 
that outstrips the lightning, and speaks like the voice of 
i God ; that defies volcanoes and storms ; and laughs at 
warrants and executions in its burning path. ^Tis this, 
despite all conquerors, to which God has given the do- 
S minion of the world, as by a covenant of salt. It is a 
^ trite observation that studies should be so arranged that 
all the mental faculties may be developed and duly bal- 
anced. In cases of eccentricity this is necessary to 
guard against monstrosity, and in other cases it is very 
well. But ordinarily we need have no painful concern 
in this matter. To prepare men for the various pursuits 
of life their minds are constituted differently; and the 
school should not be a bed of Procrustes. If we can 
form, in each case, a habit of vigorous mental action, we 
can safely trust to social intercourse and the daily 
scenes of the world's stage to regulate and moderate it. 
We are too much disposed to regard the faculties of 
the mind as separate and independent, like oxygen and 
hydrogen in the compound blow-pipe; whereas, they are 
but the different modes in which the mind acts, and are 
only treated separately, in scientific works, for the sake 
of convenience. In most cases, the soul, in performing 



236 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

one operation performs others also. How can we have 
an act of judgment, for example, without attention, ab- 
straction, memory, association, etc.? In strengthening 
one power, then, we may strengthen all; let us, there- 
fore, hail with delight any evidences of genius in the 
pupil in whatever form it may appear. 

Next to the education of the mind comes the devel- 
opment and training of the taste, and the sensibilities, 
both natural and moral. All are agreed up to this last 
point. When we come to moral nature there is a class 
that cries, " Hold, you may teach the temporal but not 
the spiritual; all moral and religious instruction must 
be excluded from the common school." Of this plan I 
remark that it is neither feasible nor allowable ; and to 
the illustration of this proposition I will devote the re- 
mainder of this paper. 

That the scheme is not practicable is evident, first, 
from the very nature of education, which consists in 
leading out the mind, encouraging inquiry, nourishing 
free, bold, independent thought. Will you draw lines 
around an awakened, emancipated, aspiring spirit, and 
say, hitherto shalt thou come and no further ? More espe- 
cially, can you restrain it from those great subjects which 
have been the themes of ages, which have absorbed the 
minds of Moses, and Socrates, and Paul, and Plato, and 
which have controlled the march of human events ? As 
well attempt to hold the lightning as it leaps from 
heaven to earth, or from earth to heaven. From every 
figure on his blackboard, from every crown, or cross, or 
flag upon his outline map, the boy, that is a boi/, may 
push his inquiring way downward to conscience, or up- 
ward to God. Vain to cry, halt, when he has pushed 
you to the line of things, moral and religious. 

Second, from the connection between the different 
powers of the soul, intellectual, sensitive, moral, and 



MORAL EDUCATION. 237 

voluntary. This is so intimate that you can not train 
one class of faculties without training others. The cel- 
ebrated Dr. Hunter, who was noted alike for the solidity 
of his judgment and the facetiousness of his expres- 
sions, once remarked — glancing at certain theorists — 
^' Grentlemen, physiologists will have it that the stomach 
is a mill, others that it is a fermenting vat, others again 
that it is a stew-pan ; but in my view of the matter, it is 
neither a mill, nor a fermenting vat, nor a stew-pan, but 
a stomach, gentlemen, a stomach." So of the human 
mind — it is neither a reasoning, nor a feeling, nor a con- 
scientious apparatus, but a mi7id, gentlemen, a human 
mind. Suppose we adopt the phrenological hypothesis, 
and ascribe to each of its powers a separate organ • still, 
it must be conceded, they are intimately connected, so 
that you could not influence one without afi'ecting others. 
They must be more closely connected than the different 
organs of the body, yet you can not seriously affect one 
hodily organ without affecting more or less every other. 
There is a great sympathetic nerve which binds them all 
together, and teaches each to weep with them that weep, 
and rejoice with them that rejoice in the same system. 
An injury upon the surface of an extremity may carry 
dismay to the vitals. Moreover, the different organs of 
the body depend upon each other. Suppose you determ- 
ine that you will watch exclusively over the brain ; soon 
may you look for cerebral disorder. Well, you interro- 
gate the troubled organ. Why, dear Brain, are you so 
perverse ? how is it, after all the care that I have be- 
stowed upon you, and the exclusive affection I feel for 
you, that you are radiating such a half-elaborated, perni- 
cious, nervous influence over the whole body, distressing 
every nerve and confusing every organ ? " Well," the 
poor braift replies, " I am not to blame ; I am not un- 
mindful of my functions, nor insensible to your goodness, 



238 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

but the heart has been pumping up lately such a cor- 
rupted stream of blood that^ with all my extra exertions, 
I am not able to manufacture out of it any thing better 
than the vicious, maddened stuff that I send out through 
the nerves." Well, go now to the heart. Heart, what 
is the reason that you have sent such an impure current 
to the brain of late? "It is no fault of mine," replies 
the heart; ''I pump up as good a blood as I receive; I 
wish it were better, I am sure; for it is painful to work 
in such a fluid, and if some change is not made soon I 
shall get sick. Ask the lungs why they send such a|?oor 
article to me." Well, Lungs, what does this mean? 
" Blame not me ; I expand and contract, as I have al- 
ways done, and air the blood as much as ever — the fault 
is lower down. Ask the vena cava why it sends up such 
miserable venous blood?" Vena cava, how is it? "I 
furnish as good an article as I can, considering the 
abominable chyle which I get. Go to the stomach, and 
you will see what is the matter." AVell, Stomach, the 
whole system is in disorder, and the fault is traced to 
you. " I own," says the stomach, '^ that the trouble is 
with me ; nevertheless I do the very best I can with the 
materials I have, but they are very unsuitable; and, 
moreover, with the water in this neighborhood, there is 
often mixed a strange poison which bewilders me, and 
sometimes turns me upside down." Thus, a little defal- 
cation or derangement in one of the partners carries 
bankruptcy and confusion into the whole bodily firm. 
This will serve as an illustration. The different organs 
of the spiritual system — intellectual, sensitive, and 
moral — are also united by sympathy and mutual depend- 
ence ; if you get one of them into the habit of vigorous 
and healthy action, the others will assume, to some ex- 
tent, a corresponding action. Quicken the heart, for in- 
stance, and intellect and conscience will wake up ; touch 



MORAL EDUCATION. 239 

conscience, and intellect and heart will leap; arouse in- 
tellect, and its associated sensibilities will be more or less 
stirred. With what godlike energy does even a sluggish 
mind move when brought under the power of some strong 
passion ! How often does the Gospel, by quickening 
conscience, exalt reason ! In proportion as it is believed 
by a man or a people, both heart and intellect beat more 
quickly, and the individual and the state steadily ascend. 
So, too, improve intellect, and you improve, as a general 
rule, conscience. I grant there are exceptions : quick- 
ened intellect may be attended with dormant, rather, per- 
verted conscience ; but this only proves that something 
more than intellect is necessary, not that quickened in- 
tellect does not tend to quicken conscience. There is 
also mutual dependence among the different powers. 
Confine attention to intellect and it may act perversely, 
not because it does not act strongly, but because it has 
not right premises. The most important truth is moral, 
but the state of the heart materially affects the intel- 
lect in its efforts to acquire it : it constitutes a medium 
through which it is seen. If you put on green glasses, 
you see the whole creation green ; so if you look through 
a green heart, you see the whole moral world tinged. 
Why is a father unfit to sit in judgment on a son ? why 
has a prisoner the right to challenge his enemy from the 
jury-box? why is it so hard to convince the miser, how- 
ever strong his intellect, of the necessity for charity? or 
the coward of the necessity for battle ? or the sluggard 
of the necessity for action ? or the lover of a wrinkle in 
the face of his mistress ? The heart may also put reason 
in a wrong relation to truth ] may turn it away from the 
proof; may even silence what it can neither escape nor 
confute, as Wadsworth's drummer did Fletcher's reader. 
The heart must be clarified before the intellect can have 
clear vision on moral mountains. The intellect, more- 



240 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

over, is dependent on the heart or conscience for impulse j 
without feeling it would act to no purpose ; the stronger 
the feeling the stronger the mental action : hence the 
superiority of conscience as a motive power. 

Suppose we pay exclusive attention to conscience : we 
may make it as tender as the apple of the eye, and yet 
be miserable oflfenders. A man may persecute his neigh- 
bor, sacrifice his child, expose his father to perish, and 
take his own life, and in all this think that he is doing 
God service. The feelings of obligation must be con- 
nected with right views of duty before we can go into 
the path of uprightness ; therefore, we must cultivate 
the intellect — the perceiving power. The divisions, 
strife, enthusiasm, fanaticism, bigotry, etc., in Christen- 
dom are chiefly owing to a want of intellectual training 
rather than a want of religious principle. From this 
correspondence and dependence of action it follows that 
you can not educate one part of our nature without influ- 
encing others. 

But, thirdly, from the connection between truths, the 
scheme appears impracticable. Perhaps there is not an 
atom, all the relations of which can be described by a 
human or angelic mind. These relations run backward 
and forward, upward and downward in a series, the end 
of which God only knows. So with phenomena : a spark 
falls upon a shaving, a conflagration ensues; and the 
whole atmosphere of the globe is so affected that no par- 
ticle of it sustains the same relation, or will sustain, at 
any time hereafter, the same relation as if the spark had 
not dropped; and as to other results, commercial, intel- 
lectual, and moral, who shall trace them? So with 
truths : the most insignificant is a member of a great 
family, to every member of which it stands related. 
The law that expands a bubble propels a steam-engine; 
the principle that wafts a feather wheels the planets. 



MORAL EDUCATION. 241 

Who shall say, when he introduces a truth into the mind, 
where it shall stop? it may lead that mind onward 
through related truths forever. But let us apply the 
remark. How can you teach mental philosophy without 
affecting the heart, directly or indirectly? You can not 
dodge the questions of the immateriality and the immor- 
tality of the soul, the freedom of the will, the immuta- 
bility of moral distinctions; and to discuss them would 
be to mine in the depths of theology. You may be will- 
ing to skim the superfices, but what shall keep your 
students from the profundities? Nothing, if only you 
have educated them. Do you teach the history of philos- 
ophy ? it must be either in the form of a dry genealogy 
or a warm genesis of the human mind ; if the former, it 
is a misnomer to style it history or philosophy; if the 
latter, you must go with your pupils to the depths of 
heart and conscience. Do you teach rhetoric ? what 
more interesting or fundamental topic does it embrace 
than the rules of evidence ? How can you learn to per- 
suade without learning to convince ? and how learn to 
convince without treating of evidence? and how treat of 
evidence without bearing upon the very foundations of 
the Christian faith? According as you instruct upon 
this point will your pupils be inclined to receive or re- 
ject Christ, or prefer this or that creed or Church. You 
may not intend this result, you may not trace the proc- 
ess; but the result is inevitable, and the process tracea- 
ble. Do you teach logic? you may easily teach it so as 
to incline the pupil either, on the one hand, to be a 
sophist, or, on the other, a reasoner. You may so select 
his authors and examples, and so arrange his exercises as 
to give him a bias toward either Bacon or the school- 
men. Though the principles of the science are invaria- 
ble, their applications may be very different, and so may 

the mental habits and moral results to which those appli- 

21 



242 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

cations respectively lead. Perhaps you say that these arc 
not suitable subjects for the common mind. Well, lay 
them aside. History is certainly fit for any school, but 
how will you teach it? If you give any thing more than 
a chronological chart, you must impart much moral and 
religious instruction. Man is in history, God is in 
history. You must treat of the rise and fall of relig- 
ions as well as empires; of dark ages and light ages; of 
corruptions and reformations. Will you shut out the his- 
tory of the world, and open only the history of our own 
country, which can scarce be said to have a history? 
Even there you must read of paganism, and Puritanism, 
and ecclesiasticism, and Antinomianism, and Quakerism, 
and witchcraft, and freedom, and slavery; and can you 
be silent on all these points, even under the probings of 
vexatious questions ? He who studies history studies to 
little profit if he merely mark events; he should trace 
them to causes, should analyze and generalize, should go 
from eiFects to agents, through plans and purposes to mo- 
tives, and through motives to principles. Do so, and 
where are you, but in the question of Divine providence 
and speculations concerning its future operations and 
final results? Every-where images and examples rise 
upon the heart, and arguments and reasons gather over 
the mind to teach the inevitable ruin of vice and the 
final triumph of virtue. Who has not heard of "But- 
ler's Analogy," which proves that providence and relig- 
ion run side by side ? 

But let us limit the studies of the school to the natural 
and exact sciences. Even here we may not be able to 
avoid the conscience and the heart. Moral truth may 
start up and refuse to 'Mown" at our bidding. Direct 
your eyes either to the earth or the heavens, you see dis- 
plays of wisdom, power, goodness : these are abstracts — 
where is the concrete? these are attributes — where is 



MORAL EDUCATION. 243 

the Being to whom they belong? So grand the demon- 
strations of God on the pages of modern astronomy, and 
so simple the process by which the mind may ascend 
from them to God, that a great man has pronounced a 
halt in it as proof of insanity. ''The undevout astrono- 
mer is mad." Who may prevent a child from ascending 
from creature to creator — from exclaiming, ''Great and 
marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty !" or from 
descending from the general conclusion to specify infer- 
ences: such as, "When I consider the heavens,'' etc.? 
From masses do you turn to atoms, and from attractions 
at sensible distances to attraction at inaensihle. Here, 
then, is chemistiy. One of its first truths is the law 
of definite proportions — a law deemed by many one of 
the clearest demonstrations against Atheism that crea- 
tion affords. To some minds all the fires of the crucible 
denote the finger of God. Parke's chemical catechism 
is as full of theology and thanksgiving as of science. 
Perhaps the dryest of all the natural sciences is anat- 
omy — it is a valley of dry bones — yet to an ancient anat- 
omist, Galen, every bone of the skeleton was a verse, and 
every joint a stanza in a hymn of praise to God; and a 
modern anatomist. Sir John Bell, has written a treatise 
to prove, from the human hand alone, the being and nat- 
ural attributes of the Almighty. And what shall we say 
of geology ? which, affording evidences of repeated acts 
of creative power, new illustrations of Divine goodness, 
enlarged conceptions of Divine plans, conclusive proof 
of a superintending Providence over the globe, and his 
special interference from time to time with his general 
arrangement; and which, teaching that the material uni- 
verse had a beginning, that fire and water are the chief 
agents in efi"ecting its changes, that the work of creation 
was progressive, that man was the last of the animals 
created, and that he has been but recently introduced 



244 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

into the world, lias important connections with both nat- 
ural reliiiion and revealed. Indeed, all the natural sci- 
ences have relations to theology at all points — they are 
^'Bridgewater treatises." God is the center and circum- 
ference of science. Trace any ray of scientific light up- 
ward, or trace it outward, to farthest east or remotest 
west, and you find one law, one God and Father of all, 
who is above all and in all. What shall prevent the 
pupil from crying out, '^Whither shall I go from thy 
Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence ?" Who 
shall enable us to imprison our pupils in spiritual diving- 
bells, by which to shut out Him in whom they live and 
breathe, while they dive into the boundless ocean of his 
wisdom, and love, and power ? Suppose we lay aside the 
natural sciences, and confine the studies of the pupil to 
reading, writing, and arithmetic. Well, what shall we 
read ? what shall we write ? what example shall we spread 
upon the blackboard? Seeing the intimate relations of 
truth 3'ou must draw black lines around almost every 
page. You must make the Index Expurgatorius as long 
as the catalogue of books. It were easy to write copies 
that might set the heart on fire : such as, ''All men are 
born free and equal;" ''All men have inalienable rights, 
among which," etc. Ah ! that et csetera might point 
the hero's sword or form the martyr's heart. It is al- 
ready undermining all thrones but God's. Dr. Chan- 
ning's antislavery feeling was kindled by one of his earli- 
est copies, which was in these words: "All men are free 
when they touch the soil of England." "Jesus Christ 
came into the world to save sinners;" this simple line 
might work like leaven in the heart of the child, and 
through it in the heart of the nation. So examples in 
arithmetic and algebra might be so framed, either by ac- 
cident or design, as to lead to the solution of the sub- 
limest moral problems. 



MORAL EDUCATION. 245 

Fourthly. The absurdity of the scheme appears from 
the connection between the different methods by which a 
teacher influences his pupils. What is the teacher? 
When he teaches arithmetic^ he is not a mere slate j 
when he teaches penmanship, he is not a mere handwrit- 
ing on the wall; when he teaches reading, he is not a 
mere alphabet moved by a learned pig; he is a man, a 
whole man, and nothing but a man ; and though you may 
hire him for inteUectual service only, yet he will give you 
moral service or disservice. You can not have one side 
of him move while the other stands still. Many men 
seem to be under the delusion of a certain selfish south- 
erner, who had a wife and child, and owned one-half of a 
negro named '^ Harry," and who prayed that God would 
bless him, and his wife, and his son, and his son's wife, 
and his half of Harry. Men generally are in no danger 
of this sort of delusion; they know that one side of a 
man can not well go without the other. When they 
employ a man to work with his hands they do not expect 
him to leave his eyes and ears at home; when you elect a 
senator you know that you do not merely send a pair of 
premises to Congress; and yet in regard to the school- 
master we seem to adopt the views of certain philoso- 
phers, who look upon the brain as the mind, and suppose 
that while one side of it is asleep the other may be 
awake, thinking out its fractions of ideas and sentiments. 
The teacher has a moral nature, and so has the child; 
and you can no more bring them together without having 
a mutual action, than you can bring salt and water to- 
gether without having a saline solution. The most op- 
pressed man is still a man. You may hitch a slave to 
your cart with the ox, or chain him to your door for a 
watch-dog, but you can not reduce GocV s child to maris 
brute; he will still operate upon your moral nature and 
that of your family — it may be fearfully and forever. 



246 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

The teaoher may give no didactic instruction in morals 
or religion, and yet be a powerful moral educator. Vol- 
taire did not systematize or argue, yet he did more to 
demoralize Europe than all its philosophists. He wisely 
preferred epigram to argument; for though few can rea- 
son, all can laugh; while logic is soon forgotten, wit can 
be retained, and relished, and retailed; and though 
ridicule is not the test of truth, yet derision is 2^ practical 
fallacy, as it leads us to reject without examination what- 
ever has been its object. Peter Aretin perhaps subdued 
more princes with his lampoons than ever did Alexander 
with his sword. If the teacher be disinclined to wit, he 
may resort to sophistry; he need not mention any faith 
while he upsets in the youth's mind all faiths, or he may 
supply a false premiss, and let the mind go forward in 
correct reasoning to wrong conclusions; he need not state 
his false premiss, but merely allude to it as among curi- 
osities or axioms. He may point out fallacies in the 
reasonings of others in such a way as to mislead. Every 
system may be supported by invalid reasoning which 
is supposed to be correct merely because it leads to a true 
conclusion. Let a man select some of these fallacies 
used in support of truth, and construct similar ones 
whose inconclusiveness shall be apparent, and he need 
not point out the parallelism; he may leave the young 
mind lo scent that out, and trust to it to proceed to a 
fallacy of its own; namely, that of denying the truth of 
a conclusion because certain premises used to prove it 
are false. Men may argue without syllogisms, may wrap 
up a couple of premises in a single word, and bring out a 
conclusion in an exhortation, as did Pilate's wife in a 
certain message to her husband. They may reason when 
they appear to be inquiring, as did the most profound of 
ancient reasoners — Socrates — habitually. Indirect in- 
struction is all the more vivid and permanent for being 



MORAL EDUCATION. 247 

indirect; the mind goes with it^ utmost speed when the 
guide, having put it upon the track, leaves it to itself. 
An explosion is none the less sure or less violent because 
the train is concealed. Men do wrong to sneer at little 
errors as though they were harmless. A little unarmed 
boy may slip a bolt at midnight and let armed enemies 
witliin the citadel. Hints from a man who dare not 
speak out may not be powerless. There is a doctrine 
which teaches that infinitesimal doses are most active. 
AVhether homeopathy be true or not, the soul is apt to 
feci moral poison even in its decillionth dilution, espe- 
cially if it be in the shape of forbidden sugar, for the 
prohibition produces a morbid sensibility. 

But let us suppose — what is impossible — that you could 
reduce the human tongue in the teacher's mouth to a 
tinkling cymbal. He would still have a face, and this 
would be something more than a picture. Truth and 
lies, arguments and sophisms, hints and inuendoes, might 
play around it like lightning on the face of the thunder- 
cloud. Suppose you cover his face with a cowl, he will 
still put eloquence in his attitudes and movements. AVho 
has not heard of the pantomime? The pointing of a 
finger, under certain circumstances, might arouse an 
army, and make all the difi'erence of defeat and victory. 
Lovers may court by signs and wonders. If the teacher's 
person were concealed, you could not conceal his spirit. 
Ah, how often does this silently breathe its image upon 
a fellow-spirit! In utter weakness it may win conquests, 
and call forth the exclamation, "Though your arguments 
are worthless, your sinrit has subdued me;" and spirit 
may reach spirit even though both be deaf and dumb. 

Then there is a power — from which no man can divest 
himself — example — more eff'ective than any other method 
of instruction, and which no caveat can cancel. Who 
has not heard of the fable of the frog that exhorted his 



248 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

offspring to walk uprigtit? The influence of a master, 
however he may be trammeled, will always be great. 
"7p.se dixit," cries every qualified instructor's pupils with 
something of the same feeling as the pupils of Pythago- 
ras did. They are taught to take his statements in some 
things: they find them reliable so far as they can verify 
them. What shall prevent them from transferring the 
credibility with which they receive one class of his dicta 
to other classes, and, a fortiori, what shall prevent them 
from feeling the influence of his life? You might as 
well put a child in the fire, and pray that he may not be 
burnt, as put him under the care of a vicious master, and 
hope that he will not be vicious. The contagion of ex- 
ample, like the malaria of cholera, works silently, insen- 
sibly, constantly, widely. Even men can scarce resist 
it — how then shall children? Think not a few cautions 
will save them. Behind their little eyes are active 
brains; and little as you think of it, they are capable of 
going through the most complicated processes of reason- 
ing without knowing any thing of logic. They read 
countenances, they trace thoughts, they scent inconsist- 
encies as the war-horse snufi"s the battle from afar. What 
one Roman once said to another we may say to the 
teacher, "Thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so 
scrutinized by vigilant guards, that thou canst not stir a 
foot without their knowledge. There shall be eyes to 
detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy 
wariest whisper;" and we may add, if thou art evil, thy 
careless look, or movement, or whisper may telegraph lies 
in immortal souls or fire trains upon the track of distant 
magazines. No district would put the small-pox in the 
school-house, yet vaccination is some protection against 
it; but there is no prophylactic against the virus of a 
bad example. Equally operative is a good example. 
What though the good man be blindfolded and speech- 



MORAL EDUCATION. 249 

less, still he is a good man. As well suppose that your 
children can gambol and sing upon the bosom of some 
flowery mountain without breathing its fragrance, and 
catching and bearing onward to eternity its forms of 
beauty, as that they may sit at the feet of a good man, 
day by day, without receiving the impress of his soul. 
He is a tree planted by the river's side; his branches 
shall spread, and his beauty be as the olive-tree, and his 
smell as Lebanon; and what though he dare not speak, 
they that dwell under his shadow shall return — they shall 
revive as the corn and grow as the vine. And who does 
not know that the impressions made upon young minds 
are lasting, like the image which Phidias wished to per- 
petuate by stamping it so deeply in the buckle of his 
Minerva that it should be impossible to obliterate it with- 
out destroying the statue itself! ''Take heed that ye 
offend not one of these little ones." 

Fifthly. We may show the impracticability of the 
scheme we are considering by the relation which the 
hearer sustains to what is uttered. I know that as in the 
natural world — as a general rule — like produces like, so 
in the moral the harvest is according to the seed. But 
as in the former climate, and soil, and prior cultivation 
have their influence upon the crop, so in the latter con- 
stitution, and education, and habits of association afi'ect 
the germination and growth of that which is sown. In 
the road over the Andes there is a half-way house where 
the ascending and descending travelers meet for refresh- 
ments. Here, under the same temperature, those who 
have just come from the chilling breezes of the summit 
are panting with the heat, while they who have just quit- 
ted the sultry valleys of the base are shivering with the 
cold. Could we make the school-house a half-way house 
on the Andes of thought, so various are the moral eleva- 
tions from which the children come, that what might 



250 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

chill the hearts of some might inflame those of others. 
In any Christian city you may find some families who 
breathe the air of heaven, and others who are as perfectly 
Pagan as are the inhabitants of Shanghai, and to whom 
a just conception of God would be a new revelation. A 
word, an allusion, a definition, an incident that might 
make one soul glow like a furnace, might leave the other 
like ice. 

The associating principle has immense influence on 
minds; it, in a very great measure, determines the efi"ect 
which a truth shall have. Mr. Hartley, Sir James Mac- 
intosh, and others have applied it to explain the origin 
of our moral sentiments. It is that property of our 
minds by which any object or state of consciousness — 
whether image, thought, or emotion — has a tendency to 
recall other states or objects of consciousness with which 
it has, in some way, been previously connected. Every 
thought received into the mind by its relations of time, 
place, cause and efi"ect, resemblance or contrast, awakens 
a train of thought previously in the mind; its influence, 
therefore, depends upon the stores of knowledge which 
the mind possesses and its associating habits, as the 
result of the chemical test depends upon the affinities of 
the solution into which it is dropped. 

Tell me that I shall say nothing to influence the moral 
character of those under my care, and you tell me non- 
sense. As well say that I shall restrain the atmosphere 
from bearing my breath in any direction except toward 
the north pole. They who forbid moral instruction gen- 
erally overlook the fact that it is constantly going on. 
Though the school might not teach morals, the play- 
ground, and the street, and the market, and the tavern, 
and the promenade, and the auction-block, will. Though 
the teacher do not teach the written decalogue, there are 
plenty of masters to proclaim an unwritten one : lust, and 



MORAL EDUCATION. 251 

stealing, and blood, and Atheism preacli without any 
license. Let the youth grow up and choose religion and 
morals for himself, and he may choose himself into the 
penitentiary long before he is fully grown. Men often 
complain of the ease with which the young mind receives 
a religious bias; but they ought to think of the greater 
ease with which it receives an irreligious one. The early 
age at which vicious tendencies appear, the prevalence 
of wickedness all through the world, the proneness of 
nations to degenerate, the acknowledged difficulties of 
virtue, and the shocking details of human history are 
familiar to all, and show that without resistance the soul 
must be borne downward. 

But if any still object to the education of a child's 
moral nature, let him reflect upon that nature. It is the 
moral nature that gives us ideas of right, of duty, of 
obligation — next to that of God, the noblest conceivable 
ones; it is this which harmonizes the jarring elements 
of the breast; that alone can gird will for its conflict 
with passion, arm the soul with strength in every diffi- 
culty, patience under every pain, and a might that braves 
all the powers of hell. The idea of right may be misdi- 
rected, the impulse to right may be misleading, the ap- 
probation of conscience may be misapplied, but still that 
idea is the greatest of all, that impulse of more value 
than the universe, and that approbation the richest re- 
ward that heaven can bestow. The moral nature is neces- 
sary in order that we may understand the character of 
God or receive a revelation of his will. It alone enables 
us to ascend the scale of being. However undeveloped 
a human mind may be, it has in it the elements of all 
intellectual combinations. So if a man have a moral 
nature he has the elements of virtue, and may erelong 
ascend the skies. The child at the breast that has but 
just caught a glimpse of the idea of right is a nobler 



252 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

being than the ancient archangel that has lost it. What 
though that archangel penetrate all mysteries and obtain 
all knowledge; what though he take up the isles in his 
intellectual scales and the hills in his mental balances; 
what though he measure the heavens with his astronom- 
ical rod, and weigh the planets with his mathematical 
steelyards; what though he combine all beauteous forms, 
and utter all the languages of earth and the harmonies 
of heaven; yet without a sense of right to guide him he 
would be no angel, no man — only an awful reasoning 
brute. He would need a chain to bind him; and the 
more glorious his Acuities, the stronger must be that 
chain. True, he might be governed, as a tiger, by fear; 
but how else than by chain or fear, if the idea of right 
were absent from his soul? We could admire such a 
being as we admire the whirlwind or the earthquake, but 
we could not love him any more than we could the steam- 
engine. To him blasphemy, perjury, murder would be as 
worship, and song, and beneficence. Though he might 
remove mountains, he could not be "just;" though he 
might sacrifice himself, he could not be benevolent; 
though he might wallow in lust, he could not feel shame; 
and though he might spread ruin around him, he could 
feel no remorse; he could have no aspiration for purity, 
no drawing toward God. So would a man be without a 
moral nature. Unhappily the world has given some illus- 
trations of this remark. Dr. Rush has given one case, 
Dr. Crawford another, and Dr. Haslem a third. These 
are familiar to the readers of philosophy. I have received 
from a colleague — Dr. Merrick — the following, which fell 
under his own observation : 

''S. G. in early life gave singular indications of a total 
want of the moral nature. Almost as soon as he could 
speak his mouth was filled with cursing and deceit. He 
would steal whatever he wished, and from his best friends 



MORAL EDUCATION. 253 

as soon as from any other; but he was careful to guard 
against detection. He was utterly unmanageable at 
school. He possessed sound intellect, an acute appre- 
hension, a good judgment on all but moral subjects, and 
a ready memory; but his passions and propensities were 
without any regulator except his sense of interest. For 
amusement he set fire to the house in which his parents 
dwelt. When six or eight years old he took a dislike to 
an infant brother, which on one occasion he threw into 
the hog-pen, on another buried alive in the ground, 
and on another threw into a well, the child strangely 
escaping in each case with its life. As he grew in 
years he grew in wickedness, till, when about eighteen 
years old, he took a young child belonging to a sister, 
and, carrying it into the woods, literally pounded it to 
death. For this he was sent to the state prison at 
Charlestown, Mass. Here he refused to submit to dis- 
cipline, and the authorities were unable to subdue him. 
He had never labored, and declined doing the tasks 
assigned him. As a last resort, he was placed in a cis- 
tern, where he was obliged to work a pump or allow the 
water to rise above his head; he allowed it to rise, and 
was taken out only when life was nearly extinct. He 
was at length pardoned. He had now become an incar- 
nate fiend. Not only women and children fled from his 
presence, but men. Many breathed easier when he 
ceased to breathe. I do not know that I ever saw any 
thing in him which indicated a moral susceptibility, nor 
did I ever hear of any thing that did. He was insensi- 
ble t(? kindness, and incapable of any attachment except 
that of the beast for his fellows of the pasture." 

Parent, would you have your son, for a score of years, 
or even a year, in such a state? Would you not rather 
follow him to the grave? Well, remember that, though 
congenital cases of this kind are rare, artificial ones are 



254 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

not — the conscience, by bad cultivation or neglect of cul- 
tivation, may be seared as with a hot iron. 

God has given you a son with all the elements of a 
man; day by day you watch and pray over his unfolding 
powerS; and rejoice especially to mark the ideas of right, 
and duty, and gratitude — the feeling after God — the 
aspiration after a better state. How painful would it be 
to see the light of his fine eye go out, or the power to 
guide his feet or stretch his arms fail, and then to see 
the light of reason, and imagination, and memory slowly 
extinguished, leaving him an idiot in your arms! But 
still you could carry him with tenderness if only there 
were left the idea of right, the power to love the good, 
to be grateful for your kindness, and to breathe after a 
higher life. But, 0, to see the light of conscience go 
out, and though the form of man be left, though the 
intellect blaze forth with celestial brilliancy, yet the 
power of self-government, and the power of being loved, 
and the connection with good men and angels, and the 
sympathy with God, is gone. Let us have "blue laws,'' 
puritanical strictness, any thing, rather than uneducated,- 
neglected, put-out consciences. 

But the objectors generally say, ''Teach morals, if only 
you do not teach dogmas." But what morals ? Of 
course, you would not allow us to teach of the ground of 
moral obligation — perhaps you will tell us of the rule of 
life. Shall I go to the Spartan, who bids the youth to 
steal, and praises him if he cover the theft; who allows 
a large margin of licentious indulgence to the husband, 
and a limited compensation to the wife; who permits the 
master to kill his slave, and commends him if he commit 
suicide himself? or shall I go to the Roman, who says, 
"I will avenge all injuries according as I am provoked 
by any," and who thinks no lie should be used in con- 
tracts? Shall T go to the Mohammedan, who tells me to 



MORAL EDUCATION. 255 

give alms to the widow and orphan, pray five times a day 
looking toward Mecca, make the pilgrimage to the Caaba, 
and eat no meat during the fast of the Ramadan ? or shall 
I go to the modern moralists, who, having burst the shack- 
les of the priesthood, have poured such floods of light 
upon the subject? 

"No, no," I fancy the objector says, "we can agree 
that the decalogue and our Savior's summary of it in the 
law of love to God and man shall be taught in common 
schools till We can find a better rule of life." But then 
how shall we make the pupils receive it? It will not do 
to say that it is the law of God; this were a religious 
dogma. Shall we get the civil law to enforce it? But 
the civil law can not control the heart, and it is the mo- 
tive which characterizes the moral action. Indeed, the 
difficulty always has been more in the absence of the 
right impulse than the right rule. 

"Proba meliora 
Leteriora sequor." 

The intellect may apprehend the rule as the eyes may see 
the road, but it can no more obey than the eyes can walk. 
Well, what motives shall we present? Shall we say, with 
one philosopher, there is a God, or, with another, there is 
no God? Shall we say, with Socrates, that God overrules 
the world, or, with Aristotle, that he is not concerned 
with any thing beneath the moon? Shall we suppose, 
*with Cicero, that there is a future state, or, with Pliny, 
that there is none? Or shall we find our motives in 
modern philosophers, whose creeds, to say the least, are 
no less contradictory? Suppose we teach that there is 
one God, that he governs the world, that man is responsi- 
ble to him, and that there is a future state of rewards 
and punishments: these are all dogmas, and the skeptic 
insists on their exclusion. He plants himself upon the 



256 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

Constitution. The amendment to wliicli lie refers was, 
however, set up as a monument against religious persecu- 
tion, not as a caveat against religious principle. Had it 
been proposed in the convention which framed the Con- 
stitution to repudiate the Christian religion, or to express 
indifference to all religions, or to forbid the inculcation 
of Christian doctrine in the common schools of the re- 
public, who that knows any thing of our fathers does not 
feel certain that such a proposition would have been 
promptly rejected? The infidel may, however, go below 
the Constitution, and insist that society has no right to 
require him to pay for any thing which is not essential to 
its existence. But are not religious principles essential 
to society? Without it, where can you find a sufficient 
sanction for law, especially in a republic? If we are to 
have a religion, we are shut up to the Christian religion. 
We have too much intelligence to adopt any other. And, 
surely, there is no reason to complain when the public 
teachers inculcate only those leading truths of the recog- 
nized religion of the nation, which breathe in the na- 
tional spirit, mold the national mind, direct the march of 
national events^ are recognized the world over as the lead- 
ing principles of the Christian faith, and which all expe- 
rience shows are the stability of the times. 

I grant there is a difficulty in thus limiting our relig- 
ious instruction. But it may be met by a judicious 
selection of teachers. Let them be men of true good- 
ness and of enlarged views. ' 

The difficulties spoken of are not peculiar to common 
schools. The state interferes with morals and religion. 
It passes laws against profanity, murder, adultery, polyg- 
amy, in disregard of the Atheist, the Pagan, the perfec- 
tionist, and the Mormon, who respectively may feel con- 
scientiously bound to blasphemy, infanticide, the violation 
of the marriage vow, and a plurality of consorts. The 



MORAL EDUCATION. 257 

state also recognizes great religious principles. In her 
judicial oaths, in her public fasts and thanksgivings, in 
her designation of time, in her observance of the Sab- 
bath, in all the branches of the government, she recog- 
nizes the being and attributes of God, his providence 
over the earth, and the redemption of the world by Jesus 
Christ. Should she cease to do so she would practically 
ordain Atheism. You may say give us neither Atheism 
nor Deism, Christianity nor Rationalism, in the govern- 
ment, as though you could separate the legislation of a 
people from its religious and moral ideas. You might as 
well attempt to separate the Mississippi from its tribu- 
taries. * 

Well, as much religion as we have in the government 
we may surely have in the school. There is one question 
to which I would like to devote attention if I had space. 
May we not safely intrust religion to priests and parents? 
If so, although we may admit that it is necessary to gov- 
ernment, it may not be allowable in schools. Preaching 
comes too late — after moral character is in a great meas- 
ure formed; and if any one would trust parental instruc- 
tion, let him consider the characteristics of this restless, 
speculative, money-getting, moving, heterogeneous people. 
The school-house is the great fountain of national char- 
acter, and sends forth sweet or bitter waters through all 
the streams of the nation's thought. It must be in the 
hands of either religious or irreligious men. Let it fall 
into the latter, and Cataline is at the gate of our Rome. 

22 



258 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



THAT we may keep within proper limits, let us confine 
ourselves to two inquiries : How shall we read ? and 
why? And, first, how? My answer is, with scrutiny, 
reflection, and appropriation. 

I say with scrutiny. And this remark is not unneces- 
sary, for often a book is used to dissipate weariness, fill up 
a vacant hour, or direct our attention from subjects which 
might lead us to laborious thought. That there are oc- 
casions when books may properly be used in this way I 
do not deny; but books suitable for such purposes hardly 
deserve that name : let them be ranked with toys — well 
enough for the child, the valetudinarian, the way-worn, 
and the poor, bewildered one who wanders on the brink 
of derangement. I speak now of serious reading, which 
ought always to be an exercise of thought. If you find 
your mind unengaged, lay your book down, lest you form 
a habit of mental supineness. If it is of great import- 
ance, take it up again, but not till you have called your 
soul to account for its listlessness. Many often read even 
the Bible merely to satisfy a tender conscience, or con- 
form to a commendable habit, till at length it produces 
no more impression upon them than blank paper. If 
they were to pause, search, study, ^Jray, over each verse, 
or if they were to read it in the original language, espe- 
cially if they were under the necessity of tracing words 
to their roots, of declining nouns and conjugating verbs, 
it would be a new revelation to them. 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 259 

To read with scrutiny implies attention — an active, 
fixed, penetrating state of mind, which should be di- 
rected to the words, the thoughts, the object, and the 
spirit of the author. We can not apprehend ideas with- 
out understanding words, for it is only by words that we 
can either think or receive thought, or convey it. Many 
who read words which they can not define, suppose they 
understand them, more especially if such words are 
familiar to them. They may, indeed, by a sort of in- 
stinct, and they may not. If they do, it is only by sup- 
plying conjecturally the words not defined. In matters 
of importance it behooves us to be sure that we are right. 
Most words have synonyms 3 but if they have been cor- 
rectly used, they can not well be exchanged for others. 
Let us see that we give to each word not merely the 
right meaning, but the right shade of meaning. And 
here you will mark one of the great advantages of clas- 
sical study; it directs attention closely to words; it qual- 
ifies us to trace their relations; it habituates us to scan 
their uses. You will not infer that we are to define all 
our words, but that we are to be capable of defining 
them. We must attend to construction, no less than 
words. The same words may be arranged so as to con- 
vey truth, or falsehood, or nothing at all, of which we 
have many examples in the responses of heathen oracles. 
How often do we read on carelessly! If we understand, 
very well; if not, just as well; if we get a meaning that 
satisfies us, what matter whether it is our own or the 
author's ! How difi"erently do lawyers read deeds and 
wills, replications and declarations, statutes and decis- 
ions; the dotting of an i or the tense of a verb may 
make all the difference between defeat and victory. 
They relate in classic story that a client returned to his 
lawyer a speech that he had written for him to read to 
the jury, saying that when he first read it he thought it 



260 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

perfect; when he read it the second time he began to 
doubt; and when he read it the third time he thought it 
miserably poor. ''You fool," said the lawyer, ''are you 
going to read it to the jury three times?" Most authors 
write for the world's first reading, and the world rarely 
gives them a second. In general, books are read superfi- 
cially; if addressed to the imagination and the passions, 
because it is useless to fathom them; if addressed to the 
reason, because it is difficult to do so; if of irreligious 
character, because they fall in with the current of human 
thought and feeling; and if of opposite tendency, be- 
cause they are unwelcome to the heart. How many sub- 
lime passages in the prophets, the Psalms, the evangel- 
ists, are of no meaning, because we do not make our- 
selves acquainted with their force ! Let us give every 
book a third reading, or, at least, its equivalent, before a 
final passage. Hence, it would be well for us to have 
always upon the table an English dictionary, and a Bio- 
graphical, a Geographical, and a Scientific one, that we 
may understand the allusions and feel the full power of 
the author. A good book read with constant references, 
whenever necessary, to maps, history, and authority, is 
w i'th a cart-load read superficially; it exercises our 
highest faculties, extends the circle of our information, 
and revives, deepens, and applies knowledge previously 
acquired. From the ideas of the author we must ascend 
to his design. Many have read Homer's Hiad, for ex- 
ample, without ever comprehending its purpose; yet it is 
not till we see the lesson it is designed to impress — the 
importance of fraternal union — that we can fully appre- 
ciate the great poet's power. How can we judge of a 
book without considering the intention with which each 
illustration, argument, deduction, and figure is intro- 
duced, and the relation it bears to the writer's ultimate 
purpose? K thing absolutely strong may be relatively 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 261 

weak; a thing absolutely impotent may be relatively 
mighty; a strong chain may be rendered useless by one 
missing link; a feeble beam may become powerful, if it 
leap out of the timber in answer to the stone that cries 
out of the wall. Nor should we fail to consider the 
spirit of the author — the habitual nature of his feelino's, 
and their particular state when he penned his produc- 
tion. Thus the spirit of Shakspeare is genial; of 
Young, gloomy; of Milton, grave; of Byron, bitter and 
malignant. Yet no one of them has written all his works 
in the same mood. Compare, for example, the Don Juan 
and the Hebrew Melodies. Without appreciating the 
spirit of an author, we can neither understand the 
meaning, nor measure the intensity, nor fix the compre- 
hension, which we should ascribe to his expressions. 
The same words are of far different meaning and force in 
the mouth of anger and the mouth of love ; the same 
phrase in Solomon's Song, and in Moore's Melodies might 
inspire feelings as aifferent as would an angel in light 
and a woman in scarlet. There is one book which, in 
consequence of its antiquity, its pre-eminent importance, 
and its inspiration, should be read with special aids; that 
is, commentaries. I refer now to such as are critical; 
of which Adam Clarke's is a fine example, though, like 
the sun, it has spots. There are separate commentaries 
on particular portions of Scripture which will generally 
be found better than any universal one. I wish we had 
writers who had done for other books of the Bible what 
Lowth has for Isaiah and Home for the Psalms. The 
diffuse commentaries, abounding in reflections which had 
better come from your own mind, you will generally find 
watery; you may obtain ideas from them after long wait- 
ing, but they will not be your own, and they will be 
received in a distended and weakened mind. Educated 
men often read the Bible better without commentaries. 



262 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

Let them have a good Bible dictionary and a work on 
Archceology; an acquaintance with the original tongues, 
and with ancient history and geography, and they need 
not fail to find the meaning of holy oracles. Moreover, 
they will study with a mind more awakened, more inde- 
pendent, more cautious, more critical, and more reveren- 
tial, too, as the principal and the auxiliary, the divine 
and the human, will not be so intimately blended. Were 
commentaries all destroyed, the Bible would become a 
California, where every man, assured there was gold, 
would wash his own sand. 

To scrutiny should succeed reflection. "We should not 
only examine superfices, but penetrate, revolve, evolve, sep- 
arate, compare, combine, till "out of the eater comes forth 
meat, and out of the strong comes forth sweetness.'' We 
should seek not merely for the melody of the cadences 
and the beauty of the images, but the validity of the 
judgments, the weight of the matter, the value of the 
conclusions, the additional illustrations and arguments by 
which the statements and reasonings might be corrobo- 
rated, the relation which the facts bear to our previous 
knowledge, and the various uses to which the information 
imparted may be applied; or, on the other hand, the ex- 
ceptions which have been omitted, the blunders which 
have been committed, the inconsistencies into which the 
author has fallen, and the inapplicability of his subject 
to useful purposes. A book read with reflection is like 
the imaginary gold concealed in the vineyard of fable, 
which, causing the possessors to dig deep all over their 
grounds, formed in them habits of eager industry, and 
gave to their soil an unsuspected productiveness. Men 
too often, either from a want of information or want of 
independence, from an overweening confidence in the 
author or an incorrigible indolence in themselves, from 
an unpardonable haste or an unfortunate weakness, re- 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 263 

ceive all that they read. Such minds are like human 
life, never in one stay. Their philosophy is grass; in 
the morning it cometh up and flourisheth; in the even- 
ing it is cut down and withereth. If you would know 
their present state of mind, ask what book they have 
last read. ''They are ever learning, but never able to 
come to a knowledge of the truth." Their minds are as 
blackboards overspread with symbols, which by cancella- 
tion yield only zero. If they happen to be pastors or 
teachers, woe to their flocks or pupils, for they are to be 
led through a maze; if they are doctors, woe to their pa- 
tients, for they must taste a little of every thing. Hap- 
pily such persons have but little force. 

There is a great want of reflection among mankind; 
the multitude in all ages has sunk into the grave without 
thinking; and the few that have not, with here and 
there an exception, have been occupied with the 
thoughts of others rather than their own. A few sov- 
ereign minds divide among themselves the realm of 
reason, giving opinions as decrees. No sway more per- 
fect than theirs. Talk not of Russian autocrats in pres- 
ence of the autocrats of philosophy, who, as God's 
thinking vicegerents, prescribe routes and limits for the 
outgoings of human mind, and hunt down those who 
transgress them as wild beasts of the desert. Hence, 
notwithstanding unnumbered millions of separate im- 
mortal men have lived upon the earth, all the thoughts 
of the world that have been preserved may be ranked 
under a few heads : thus, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, 
Mohammed, Bacon, Kant. A Caesar or Bonaparte ceases 
to rule when he dies; but these mental despots rule ages 
after they disappear. Aristotle, for example, swayed 
Europe for more than a thousand years, and still he 
sways. Columbus will be remembered long as an island 
or mountain of this continent shall stand above the 



264 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

waves; but Homer will be known long as a syllable of 
language lives upon the lips of man. Columbus rules 
not the lands he pointed out; Bacon does. It would 
seem, at first sight, that the law of hereditary succession 
does not prevail among the princes of thought; but, 
upon examination, we see that young ones are but the 
children of the old, with altered names. Scarce a new 
phase in philosophy that is not a mere revival of an old 
one. The present age is as unreflective as its prede- 
cessor; it is one of activity and haste, in which its very 
facilities are incumbrances; the multitude of its books 
discourages reflection. Would you form an idea of a 
man's politics, ask what political paper he takes; would 
you know his religion, ask what preacher he hears. But 
do not his opinions direct the choice both of paper and 
preacher ? So you might suppose, but that you find 
him veering as they do, just as they veer when their 
masters do. What revolutions are wrought in the masses 
by the movement of some national convention! "Old 
things pass away, all things become new;" parties are 
bought and sold with their leaders, as Russian serfs are 
bought and sold with the land. Men will not think; 
they have their thinking done for them — done by ma- 
chinery. As the Carguero carries the traveler in a chair 
on his back over the mountains of Quito, so the teacher 
is to bear the student on his blackboard to the summits 
of knowledge; as the priest in Siberia ties his devotions 
to the windmill, and expects every revolution to count a 
valid prayer, so we expect our ministers to waft our souls 
to the mount of God; as the steam-horse puff's us, 
whether we are asleep or awake, to the city, so we expect 
the book to bear us to the metropolis of reason. Hence, 
human mind, with increased activity, has diminished fer- 
tility; amid advancement in arts, and sciences, and 
wealth, it is stationary in the higher grounds of intellect- 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 265 

Tial labor; having more leisure, more facilities, more 
knowledge, more incentives than it has ever had, it is 
content to be agitated and amused with the successive 
explosions of the magazine of folly and error, and makes 
no majestic march in the direction of truth. It trembles 
to ascend on the stream of borrowed thought to original 
fountains, as if, like the rivers of Eden, they were 
guarded by sworded cherubim; it fears to move onward 
to the ocean, as if beyond the frequented coasts of truth 
nature inverted her laws. Reflect as you read, cautiously, 
but freely, boldly. 

We should not only read with reflection, but appropri- 
ation. The mind may comprehend its knowledge, and 
act upon it, without being able to make use of it; hence, 
some, though very learned, are far from wise. Their 
minds are as a storehouse, where all treasures are con- 
fusedly mixed ; they are walking libraries, and can give 
you history, philosophy, poetry, and theology, but just as 
they received it ; they have carefully wrapped their tal- 
ent in a napkin, and buried it, to be disinterred when 
called for. There are others, who analyze propositions — 
who consider the relations of facts to others which they 
have previously acquired, and thus elicit further knowl- 
edge, uniting the diff"erent colored rays of the mental 
prism to form a perfect lighf^ — who ponder principles till 
they see new applications of them — who examine argu- 
ments till they perceive new truths which they may be 
made to disclose — who find in one sophism the clew to 
another. They profitably invest their talents, and give 
forth knowledge not as they received it, but, though like 
itself, yet not itself, more than itself; the spiritual corn, 
sinking into their mental soil, dies, and is quickened, 
and sends forth first the blade, then the ear, then the 
ripe corn in the ear. Between the knowledge of these 

two there is the difi"erence of life and death. It is 

23 



EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

amazing wliat power of appropriation a man may acquire. 
Kossuth may make a speech every day from the conver- 
sations of men, who little suspect that the knowledge 
they receive from him is but that which they have given, 
though bearing the impress of his mind; he received it 
as ore, he returns it as currency. See that your soul is 
not a great cistern, but a great furnace, in which every 
thing cast must be saved as by fire. 

Not every book is to be read with the same degree of 
attention. Erasmus cries, ^'I have spent twelve years iu 
the study of Cicero." Lord Verulam responds, '' ass !" 
Generally that book which has been written hastily 
should be read hastily. Some volumes have cost twenty 
years' toil; these should be read slowly, or not at all. 
Although we may tithe mint, anise, and cummin, we 
should not be as long collecting the revenue of a poor 
district as of a rich one. " Some books," says Lord 
Bacon, '^ are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and 
some few to be chewed and digested." Of the last class 
I speak. 

The habit of attentive, reflective, appropriative read- 
ing may not be easily acquired, nor is any other good 
habit; but we may say of it what Aristotle says of learn- 
ing, ''The roots are bitter, but the fruits are sweet." 
When once it is acquired, It may readily be strength- 
ened, and vrill aiford through life a never-failing feast 
and an unceasing mental growth. Youth is the time to 
acquire it, and the best mode is to use the pen ; not to 
transcribe important chapters or beautiful passages to be 
used as aids in argumentation or gems in composition — a 
practice which enervates memory and degrades style; 
nor to construct commonplaces — an exercise much more 
useful ; but to form discourse of your own ; this will 
prove a magnet to gather fragments as you advance, and 
at once guide and stimulate your further excavations. 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 267 

But read with an eye to human life. We should not live 
to read, but read to live. Action is the highest mode of 
being — 

"In the deed— the unequivocal, authentic deed — 
We ftnd sound argument." 

The purpose of training a child is not so much that he' 
may read, or write, or speak, but <jo. Mere study is a 
■weariness to the flesh; and however diligent we may be, 
we can not grow much wiser or stronger by reading ex- 
clusively. Books need the illustration of nature and 
life. The physician, lawyer, doctor, warrior, who should 
spend life in the study, w^ould not be fit to be trusted. 
It is only by the aj^pUcation of knowledge that we learn 
its limitations, exceptions, and proper force. Hoarded 
knowledge, like the hoarded manna of the desert, pu- 
trefies ; and epicurism in mind, as in body, has its acids 
and crudities, its flatulencies and constipations. All wis- 
dom and wit that does not promote man's haT3piness or 
God's glory is vanity. Hence, while men have ranked 
philosophers and orators as demigods, they have ranked 
discoverers and inventors as gods; and properly, since 
the comet that occasionally flashes up the heavens is less 
godlike than the dew which, from day to day, and gener- 
ation to generation, invisibly distills upon the earth. 

Neither a nation nor an individual is to be judged by 
the number of its books. Egypt was crumbling when 
her Alexandrian Library was the largest in the world ; 
Asia Minor was falling under the blows of Greece when 
her books were ten to one more than her adversary's; 
Greece had multiplied her parchments when Rome's 
hardy legions subdued the Peloponnesus; Borne was 
filled with books when Alaric sacked the imperial city. 
On the contrary, Greece had but few writings when she 
drove back Xerxes, and produced Homeric song; Bome 
few when she expelled the Tarquins, and brought forth 



268 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

Brutus; Britain few when she drafted the Magna Charta, 
and sent the Black Prince to Cressy; and what is more 
common than to find a man with a large library a very 
great fool ! 

Nevertheless, books have their uses; and we come to 
inquire; secondly, why should we read? The lighter uses 
of reading — to tranquilize our passions, to assuage our 
sorrows, to moderate our anxieties, to beguile our jour- 
neys, to give interest to our idle hours, to refine the man- 
ners and humanize the heart, to awaken the desire for 
knowledge and form the taste for reading — we pass with 
a single caveat against a class of books which is usually 
employed to answer these indications : I mean novels and 
romances. In condemning them let us not be understood 
as denouncing all fictitious productions; the fables of 
^sop, the allegories of prophecy, the parables of Christ, 
the tales which embellish and impress historical facts, 
and the illustrations which the pulpit employs with so 
much grace and efficiency, afi"ord at once authority for 
fictions and rules for its construction and use. Novels 
and romances usually off'end a pure taste and a sound 
mind by their gaudy dress, their unnatural characters, 
and their paucity of instruction; and always tend to 
weaken the power of attention, to impair the judgment, 
to divorce the connection between action and sympathy, 
to give a preponderance to the imagination, to create a 
distaste for simple truth, and a disinclination both for 
manly studies and the dull realities of life. Many of 
them are liable to a greater objection, as, by a Plutonic 
chemistry, they turn the diamond of virtue into the char- 
coal of vice. It is alleged that they soften the heart and 
excite an interest in sufi"ering. Often, however, it is an 
undistinguishing or a mawkish sensibility, which, while 
it can weep over the picture of a dead Gipsy, can wring 
the living heart of a loving father. That by inflaming 



f 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 269 

the imagination^ interesting the affections, and exciting 
an interest in books, they may be useful to some minds, 
and, indeed, to most minds in certain moods, must be ad- 
mitted; but since the good they accomplish may be 
effected by works of unquestionable tendency, why resort 
to such as intoxicate while they imparadise, bewilder 
while they allure, and emasculate while they excite? 
The higher forms of poetry, philosophy, and religion are 
sufficiently fascinating and energizing to all the faculties. 

Let us come to the higher ends of reading — to inform, 
to balance, and to stimulate the mind, to form the style 
and to reform the heart. 

To inform the mind. The great purpose of education 
is to develop and train the faculties; in doing this we 
must necessarily give some information; but the col- 
lege, when she graduates, turns you over to testimony or 
observation. It was the error of the schoolmen to sup- 
pose that all knowledge was contained in the soul ; hence, 
they wasted life in seeking to find out external things by 
agitating their own intellects, as if matter could be made 
by shaking emptiness. Although the theory of the 
schoolmen has been exploded, their practice has not. 
We still need to be reminded that we can not draw con- 
clusions without premises; that from nothing comes 
nothing, however much it may be agitated. In judging, 
remembering, analyzing, and generalizing, the philoso- 
pher may have great advantages over the savage; but for 
the facts the one is as dependent as the other. An edu- 
cated young man has fundamental knowledge of nature 
and life, of history and geography; but let him remem- 
ber that his knowled2;e is but fundamental — that he must 
build upon it, and that his very foundations are liable to 
decay unless he is constantly carrying forward the super- 
structure. History, civil, ecclesiastical, and natural, are 
before him. Of the first two he has an outline — general 



270 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

notions of the stream of time; names of nations, their 
rise, decline, and fall; great epochas, leading events, dis- 
tinguished names, and a table of dates — a mere chart to 
give interest and direction to the voyage before him. So, 
too, of natural history — his knowledge is but skeleton, to 
be clothed and animated by a patient continuance in the 
study of nature under the guidance of its more eminent 
interrogators. In this department of learning, if we be 
not studious we must ever recede. Chemistry, geology, 
etc., have just passed the pillars of Hercules, and are 
cutting with their keels an unknown ocean toward an un- 
known world. Geography, once a fixed, is now a progress- 
ive study, following commerce, and science, and Chris- 
tian sympathy into all regions, and mapping past events, 
human progress, and providential designs among all peo- 
ples. But what shall we read upon these subjects? I 
give no list of books; but, since by reading according to 
a well-conceived plan we shall have clearer views and 
speedier progress, I refer you to some such '^Hand-Book 
of Literature" as Bishop Potter's. Be not alarmed at 
the size of the catalogue. What can not be accom- 
plished in one year may in ten; nor are all histories to be 
studied with equal care. God, in his word, has epito- 
mized the history of many generations, indicated the 
chief points of attention in the field of later history — 
the Assyrian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Boman — fur- 
nished in his providence the most able authors — Polyb- 
ius, Livy, Thucydides, Xenophon, BoUin, Gibbon, etc. — 
to illustrate them, and given us a clew to connect their 
various parts and trace their important bearings. We 
may pass rapidly, by the aid of Hallam, through the 
dark region of medieval history, and obtain imperfect 
glances on the pages of Hume, Bobertson, Bussel, etc., 
of the more important events of modern times. For 
current history we need a well-edited daily, a weekly con- 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 271 

densing its news, a monthly digesting the literature of 
the times, and a quarterly converging the mature thoughts 
of the passing age. Let us not spend too much time 
upon them; the periodical press is, to a great extent, 
trash;- it caters for society, instead of elevating it; its 
miscellany is often weak and affected; its essays conten- 
tious, deceitful, superficial; its criticisms mere moths, 
fretting what they can not produce; its intelligence 
cliiefly is to he valued. Nevertheless, it is indispensable: 
it lights up the world, though with gas; it circles the 
earth, though like the stars, in appearance only; it runs 
to and fro, though it does not always increase knowledge. 
There are, too, noble exceptions among editors — men 
whose essays are worthy to be studied as well for matter 
as style. 

The history of human ideas or philosophy should be 
pondered. You have seen this tower of Babel at a dis- 
tance; to mark its successive stories, to listen to the con- 
fusion of its tongues, and to trace its moss-grown ruins, 
is a task at once curious and profitable. Although no 
book is prepared for this purpose, yet we may extend our 
explorations by the light of such works as Enfield's or 
Brucker's. The acquisition of extensive and accurate 
knowledge of men and things of the past and present is 
indispensable, as well to a just appreciation of the best 
authors, as the proper employment of our own powers. 
It is thus we grow familiar with the muses, and make all 
nature vocal; thus we evoke Minerva from the brain, and 
give a harp to our sounding bowels. To philosophy let 
us add divinity. Concerning the relations of the soul to 
God, or life to immortality, we can know only what is re- 
Tealed ; for such knowledge it is vain to beat ab-out in 
nature, or turn upon ourselves, for it is above both. Pen- 
etrated with this truth, we should come to the Bibh' 
with the docility of a child, and the awe of a prophet. 



272 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

It you have received it as a revelation, it is too late to 
cavil, argue, or doubt, concerning it. You must receive 
a prophet in the name of a prophet if you would receive 
a prophet's reward. However humbling to the pride of 
reason may be this unquestioning belief, I enjoin it with 
the more confidence because you will accord it to some- 
thing. You will seek rest in something infallible. "I 
am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not; if 
another come in his own name, him ye will receive." 
Alas! there is as much diflference between the revelations 
of Scripture concerning Divine things and the specula- 
tions of men, as between the solid world which Columbus 
discovered, and the dark, agitated, and liquid chaos 
which, beyond a certain horizon, presented itself to the 
imaginations of men before the days of that immortal 
navigator. And here let me advise you to read no skep- 
tical works; they are unnecessary: a proposition and its 
contradictory need not both be investigated; if one be 
true, the other is false. You have assented, after satis- 
factory proof and argumentation, to the truth of the 
Bible, and refuted the chief objections and arguments of 
infidels. What more is needed? The contradictory of 
the proposition may, however, be proved false directly, as 
well as indirectly, without any examination of infidel 
labors. It is nearly two thousand years since skeptics 
undertook to overthrow the Bible, and it is now more 
firmly, and intelligently, and extensively believed than 
ever. If the allies of the European west had been bom- 
barding Sevastopol without intermission, with the pro- 
gressive improvements in the art of war, for two thou- 
sand years, and yet found the fortifications of that port 
now ten times as strong as ever, you would conclude, 
without examining their parallels or batteries, that Sevas- 
topol is impregnable. If infidelity finds the Bible a 
thousand times more firm after it has been ars-uino- 



MISCELLAx^EOUS READING. 273 

against it for eighteen hundred years, what will it find 
after it has argued in its most approved style for eighteen 
hundred years more? 

We may take it for granted, that if it had one reliable 
argument it would in this wicked world be familiar as a 
household word. Moreover, the arguments of unbeliev- 
ers are self-destructive; put them in parallel columns, 
and you may reduce them to zero by cancellation. An- 
cient infidels believed that Christ wrought miracles by 
the agency of devils; modern ones believe there is 
neither miracle nor devil. 

If you read these works, they must produce either 
some efi'ect upon your minds or none : if none, you lose 
your time and pains; if some, they must either shake 
your faith or overthrow it; if they merely shake it, they 
leave you a prey to doubt, which will distress you the 
more in proportion as you need rest of mind; if they 
overthrow your faith, they leave you exposed to universal 
skepticism concerning the past, impenetrable gloom con- 
cerning the future, and the wild play of the passions re- 
pressed only by very imperfect restraints. 

Another object of reading is to keep the mind bal- 
anced. There are three great causes of mental malad- 
justment — the hand of nature, the lapse of time, and the 
pursuits of men. The college course has been wisely ar- 
ranged to develop and train all the faculties; and 
although it does not correct all irregularities and make all 
minds symmetrical, it may, when properly pursued, pre- 
vent intellectual deformity. On leaving college we grad- 
ually undergo alterations : the sensibilities and the will 
gain upon the intellect; desire of action, power, money, 
fame, increases and rages, and in the conflicts of life we 
acquire a persistence, a firmness, a steadfastness, which 
we had not before exhibited: the intellectual states are 
also affected — imagination and memory lose power, ab- 



274 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

straction and reason gain. Occupation will modify these 
changes. As the foot of the Indian becomes fleet, and 
the eye of the sailor far-seeing, so the mind of the lawyer 
becomes acute, of the physician sagacious and practical, 
of the clergyman speculative and comprehensive. A dis- 
cerning person can, at a glance, determine a man's pro- 
fession, so deeply does it impress itself upon mind and 
manners. We should strive to prevent this daguerreo- 
typing influence, and to secure a free movement for all 
our powers. Hence, if imagination begin to fail, read 
poetry; if business absorb the mind, study histwy till its 
characters, its events, its philosophy, arrest the attention 
and eclipse the trifles of the passing hour; if in the mul- 
titude of objects and amusements your mind is losing its 
concentrativeness, recur to mathematics, which, like a 
moral ladder, will keep you watchful as you ascend from 
round to round; if in the whirlpool of life you grow con- 
tent with swimming superfices, return to the diving-bell 
of philosophy; and if in your association with the mass 
you become averse to ratiocination, and prone to take 
principles on trust, to leap to conclusions, and to argue 
ad captandum, go to the gymnasium of the schoolmen. 
There are, however, many works equally strengthening 
and more accessible than those of scholasticism : such as 
Chillingworth's defense of Protestantism, which it is said 
Daniel Webster read once a year to sharpen his logical 
skill; Fletcher's '^Checks," of which a lawyer and an 
enemy said, ^'This argument will hold water;" Berkley's 
Minute Philosopher, which it is stated Robert Hall was 
accustomed to read regularly before he commenced that 
mighty and majestic movement of mind which often 
made his pulpit like unto Mount Sinai; Wesley's Ser- 
mons, as clear in logic as fervent in rhetoric, like the 
sea of mingled glass in apocalyptic vision — with lightning 
penetration he cleaves the forms of error till he reaches 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 275 

the reservoir of first truths, and, with a profound anal- 
ysis, he not only guides you into the depths of pagan 
metaphysics, but out of them. 

There are who object to this direction, and think that 
a man should concentrate all his powers upon his pro- 
fession—if lawyer, he should let all his wisdom run to 
Bubtility; if poet, to fancy— and who look suspiciously 
on one who ventures beyond his ordinary range, as if he 
were doing injustice to his patrons. True, in order to 
shine we must converge our light; equally true, that we 
can not illustrate our own profession without ascending 
or descending, if you please, into others. We could not 
so easily survey a plain by walking continually within it 
as by ascending some eminence that overlooks it; nor 
could we form a just idea of the magnitude of a mount- 
ain without descending to the lower peaks. I believe 
in the communion of sciences as well as the communion 
of saints. It was the boast of Voltaire that he had 
discovered the island of England, so ignorant were his 
countrymen of its literature. There are many learned 
bodies to whom mathematics and poetry are unknown 
lands, and who think of law as good only for horse-thieves 
and physic for cutting off legs. Did the peculiar genius 
of the French cease to shine after they had been intro- 
duced to Bacon and Newton, and would gentlemen be 
less fitted to adorn one profession by some knowledge of 
another? Name a science to which any profession does 
not stand related or from which it may not draw illustra- 
tions and proofs. Name a man that has carried forward 
his profession who is not of general and varied reading 
and study. How did the Chinese become sluggish, or 
the monks of past ages mentally blind, but by shutting 
themselves up? How have some of the greatest phi- 
losophers become short-sighted by confining their atten- 
tion to minute points? Be not a "Know-Nothing" in 



276 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

your profession, rather a "Know-Something" out of itj 
and remember that diverse knowledges may dwell to- 
gether like soul and body. Eut what if your reading 
can not all be made tributary to your profession or 
pursuit ? You have a higher mission — the cultivation 
of yourselves. He is narrow-minded, indeed, who will 
not visit a neighbor's hearth unless he can bake his own 
cakes upon its coals. 

Another object of reading is to form the style. Works 
of rhetoric should be studied ; but it is not by the phi- 
losophy of criticism that we can form a habit of writing 
felicitously. As by associating with gentlemen we ac- 
quire the manners of gentlemen, so by reading the best 
writers we attain to the art of good writing. '^It is im- 
possible," said Seneca, ''to approach the light without de- 
riving some faint coloring from it, or to remain long among 
precious odors without bearing away with us some portion 
of the fragrance. '^ We shall more rapidly improve if we 
occasionally apply our rules of criticism, that by ana- 
lyzing the beauties of the author we may more perfectly 
relish them, and by recognizing the principles upon which 
they are founded more readily reproduce them. More- 
over, every author has his faults and imperfections, which 
we shall be liable to imitate, if we read without discrim- 
ination; indeed, so naturally do we transfer our admira- 
tion from excellences to blemishes associated with them, 
that we are as prone to imitate the vices as the virtues of 
a model. We should not confine ourselves to a single 
writer, however excellent he may be, lest he bore our 
ears through with an awl. Happily there is a great 
variety of master-pieces in composition. It is not our 
purpose to enumerate them. Suffer me to remark that, 
as a general rule, the older authors, who, writing be- 
fore learning became widely diffused, addressed them- 
selves to educated minds rather than the populace, such 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 277 

as Addison, Swift, Goldsmith, Pope, Cowper, and Young, 
are preferable; there are, however, recent writers whose 
style is beautiful, as Burke, Hall, Macaulay, Channing, 
Prescott, Irving. We should be guided in our selection 
by our peculiarity of genius — for each man has a pe- 
culiarity of intellectual character. Some men excel in 
the sententious style, others in the flowing; some are 
bold and figurative, others simple and delicate. If we 
are running our peculiarity to an extreme, we must check 
it by familiarity with a writer of opposite tendency. If 
you are too figurative, ponder Paley; if too terse, turn to 
Johnson ; if wanting in energy, read Carlyle ; if in 
purity, read Swift; if in elegance, Burke. After all, let 
us bear in mind that style is of secondary consideration. 
We should never run the risk of weakening our under- 
standing or corrupting our principles for the sake of 
polishing our periods. I should fear to come within the 
fascinations of either Walter Scott or Dr. Channing. 
The more we think and feel, the less we need study style : 
an overflowing mind, like an overflowing river, will move 
gracefully ; a heart on fire, like a house on fire, will burn 
sublimely. 

Another important object of reading is to stimulate 
the mind. Let me caution you against attempting to 
stimulate the intellect through the body in any other 
way than by taking care of your health. That the soul, 
like the embryo, is liable to be influenced by that in 
which it reposes is not denied, but the influence is a 
general one; the supposition that we can excite imagina- 
tion by opium, memory by tea, or attention by whisky, as 
we can rouse the liver by calomel, or the nose by snufi", 
is a relic of ancient pathology, which located understand- 
ing in the brain, anger in the heart, and sensuality in 
the liver, and sought to purify the soul by purging the 
body. Yet some still seek to supply genius or atone for 



278 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

idleness by a resort to stimulants and narcotics, pointing 
to Lord Byron as an example; but if the bottle could 
make poets the world v/ould be full of them. It may 
produce a temporary excitement, under the influence of 
which men may compose rapidly that which they have 
matured; and so of narcotics; but the compositions thus 
produced are not of the highest order; they seem to be 
the result of a wild and weird inspiration, such as 
breathes in the Ancient Mariner of Coleridge and the 
Raven of Poe. Like the henbane which infatuated the 
ancient pythoness on her 'tripod, they produce a species 
of moral convulsion suitable for divination and devil- 
dealing, and should be reserved for the regions of magic 
and superstition, or the age of ecstasies and dreams. If 
you would have a clear, strong intellect, eschev/' them. 
In the soul, as in the body, the law is deeply written: 
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Be 
not deceived; truth is born only with travail; the spirit 
is enfranchised only with agony. Nevertheless, there 
are aids to the laboring soul. Is it sluggish, you may 
rouse it : indirecdy by a play of Shakspeare or a chapter 
of Demosthenes; directly by a book of Milton or a page 
of Ossian. In selecting for this purpose we must imitate 
the discretion of the husbandman, who, having learned 
the varieties of his soil, scatters ashes, lime, and manure, 
and casts in the wheat, the barley, and the rye each in 
its appointed time and place. To an imaginative mind, 
imaginative works are the proper stimulants; to a ration- 
ative, argumentative ones. If, being tasked, you would 
excite your mind at once, turn to some choice collection 
of stirring pieces — dramatic, senatorial, or martial — such 
as start the soul like the tap of the reveille; and when 
you have given " Hail Columbia'^ to your heart, give 
your heart to the pen. But it is not enough to rouse the 
soul; you must give it material; and there are works which 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 279 

serve this purpose — products of original, profound think- 
ing, and, like leviathans, few and easily distinguished, for 
they make the sea of thought around them boil like a 
pot. Some of these are as gas solidified; others as un- 
wrought gold; others like the hound that puts you upon 
the track of the game. The last are the most valuable; 
it is easy to let that which is compressed resume its 
original form or to mold the molten metal; it is more 
difficult and more healthful to puisue and overtake what 
has never been caught. Coleridge's Aids to Reflection 
is an example of the first kind; Butler's Analogy, of the 
second; Bacon's Advancement of Learning, of the third. 
Scarce a jar of modern metaphysical gas that has not 
been expanded from Coleridge; scarce a beautiful fabric 
of recent time on the evidences of Christianity for which 
Butler has not furnished the raw material ; scarce a dis- 
covery in modern science since the days of James II to 
which Bacon has not pointed; and yet they can do 
more — the nature of the soil varies the crop even from 
the same seed. The deficiencies noted by Lord Verulam 
yet unsupplied are scores. All books that contain more 
than they express, that make the mind pause as it passes, 
that turn it back upon its own resources, or lead it on 
to new regions, are invaluable; they are educators; 
among ordinary books as Socrates among sophists. Most 
books are afraid to let the readers go alone a single yard, 
lest they dash their foot against a stone. Leave such to 
minds that need leading-strings. Seek books like unto 
blood-hounds, and hie to the chase : there are many such 
ahsoliitely, though few, perhaps, will prove so relatively 
to all minds. Much depends on the reader's genius and 
habits; there are some men who can make almost any 
book suggestive, like the raven which, in dry weather, 
makes the scanty water rise to her beak by dropping peb- 
bles into the hollow tree. 



280 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

If we have a particular subject on hand, most well- 
written works on that subject will prove suggestive. In 
order to write orations, read orations; to write essays, 
read essays ; only see that they are models, as Cicero and 
Addison. So if we have to write on a particular subject, 
as the atonement, we may read any strong work' on it. 
Let us guard, however, against imitating the author; and 
this can be done by making a sketch upon the theme 
before we read upon it. This we shall not be likely to 
abandon ; for a man loves a club-footed child of his own 
better than a perfect one of his neighbor's; and what- 
ever thoughts occur to us, being used in our own order, 
and standing in new relations, are our own, as the waters 
of the Mississippi are no longer the Mississippi when in 
the bosom of the gulf. The most suggestive book in the 
world is the Bible. For thousands of years it has given 
activity and direction to the best portions of the world's 
mind. It has been during all this time the fountain of 
innumerable sermons and books, no two of which are 
alike; it is suggestive of trains of thought and rhetorical 
ornaments, of new themes and new arguments, of ever- 
purer emotions and ampler views; it is an everlasting 
feast of fat things — a tower, where the watchmen may 
observe the world's night and hail its morning — a Cas- 
talian fountain, fed from perpetual snows — a furnace, 
ever forging new and glowing forms of wisdom — a cease- 
less orchestra of angels, lapping the soul in celestial 
music — a calm sunlight, consuming the vail that covers 
mortal eyes — a mountain raised between eternity and 
time, from whose summit we may look upon both. Above 
all, this is the book to accomplish the last great purpose 
of reading — the improvement of the heart, which I must 
dismiss with a word. I would not undervalue Taylor or 
Wesley, Gurnal or Baxter, Sherlock or Fuller, but if 
neither the Holy Living and Dying, the Saint's Rest, 



MISCELLANEOUS READING. 281 

the Christian Armor^ nor the Reformed Pastor^ can move 
a cold heart, lay upon it live coals directly from the altar. 
One word more. Books are most suggestive and ex- 
citing in youth. With you the soil is plowed and the 
clods broken ; cast now the seed into the furrow, that, 
when the earth mourn eth, and the vine languisheth, and 
the joy of the harp ceascth, it shall not be as the shak- 
ing of an olive-tree or as the gleaning of grapes when 
the vintage is done; but that your barns may be filled 
with plenty, and your presses burst out with new wine 
The mind cultivated from youth puts on its noblest crown 
when the almond-tree flourishes, and enjoys a marvelous 
mental second sight when they that look out of the win- 
dows are darkened; judges have given their ablest decis- 
ions, physicians exhibited their highest skill, and divines 
produced their richest works, when the grasshopper was a 
burden 

24 



282 EDUCATION AL ESSAYS 



^ettssitg af ^alU^n. 



* 



ALTHOUGH education has become a theme so trite, 
that it is almost impossible to invest it with interest, 
yet it is doubtful whether there are not multitudes in 
our membership, and many in our ministry, who need to 
be convinced of the necessity of collegiate institutions. 
And when we contrast the simplicity and purity of our 
doctrine, and the success attending its proclamation by 
an uneducated ministry, with the corruption and com- 
plexity of the tenets of some old and well-endowed sem- 
inaries, and the pride, immorality, and infidelity which 
often characterize their pupils, we need not wonder that 
our people are suspicious of colleges, and indifferent to 
their claims. 

With some exceptions, our clergy have outstripped the 
laity on the subject of education ; and having responded 
to almost every call which the interest or the zeal of an 
ambitious or enlightened community has made upon 
them, they find themselves entangled in difiiculties and 
obligations from which our people are not willing to re- 
lieve them. Hence, the present is a critical period with 
our colleges : while not one of them is well endowed, 
many are dragging out a sickly existence, and some, 
though "they have a name to live, are dead," True, at 
our conferences we open our eyes upon these objects 

^ An address delivered before the Ohio annual conference, and published 
ai its request. 



NECESSITY OF COLLEGES. 283 

of our care; but it is feared that our look is as the gaze 
of a galvanized corpse, and our spasmodic efforts to re- 
lieve, the erratic motions of powerless muscles. I trust, 
therefore, you will pardon me for asking attention to 
some plain and familiar reasons why colleges should be 
sustained. Entertaining your own views, I regret that 
you have not selected an advocate better able to express 
them. 

1. Colleges are needed to secure a useful literature. 
Rich thought is the fruit of cultivated mind, and culti- 
vated intellect implies skillful and diligent training. 
Skill in instructing, like skill in every thing else, is the 
product of practice; and since we require artisans to 
train trees for our orchards, should we not have scholars 
to train souls for human society? If we generally ad- 
mired good mind as we do grafted fruit, and if a college 
could be established with as little capital as a nursery, 
education, like horticulture, might be left to regulate 
itself But, as ignorance does not know its wants, and 
as large resources are necessary to provide adequate in- 
structors, erect suitable edifices, and afford ample ap- 
paratus to attract a nation's youthful intellect to the 
paths of learning, and open its way to the fountains of 
knowledge, the Church or the state must endow the 
seminary. Hence, in general, a nation without a college, 
is a nation without learning. 

Grecian literature was not the product of spontaneous 
genius. No nation ever bestowed more attention than 
did Greece, during her palmy days, upon the education 
of her youth. At this period she kept her son, from his 
seventh to his twentieth year, in the gymnasium, where 
his body was trained to endurance and exertion, and his 
mind enriched with the principles of science and virtue. 
Athens was a university, of which the Porch, the Acad- 
emy, and the Lyceum were apartments : Zeno, Plato, 



284 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

and Aristotle professors: and geometry, tactics, physics, 
morals, history, poetry, in fine, whatever could qualify to 
fill the offices of state, or command the armies of the 
republic — all that could refine the taste, or invigorate the 
intellect, or inflame the f\vncy, constituted the course of 
study; while architecture, statuary, painting, eloquence, 
heroism, and song, in their grandest exhibitions, fur- 
nished alluring illustrations. For ages at this glowing 
center the brilliant souls of the world were fired; and 
scarce a ray of intellectual light — save that which issues 
from the Bible — has met the eyeball of a mortal, that 
did not start from this central sun. 

It was this great university that made Greece the 
schoolmistress of mankind. No sooner were the lights 
of Greece, and their reflections at Rome, extinguished, 
than the world lowered herself into the tomb of the dark 
ages, from which she did not begin to arise till Charles 
I, of France, established institutions of learning in every 
convent and cathedral throughout his dominions. Early 
in the thirteenth century, the university of Paris being 
established, and a few years subsequently those of Oxford 
and Vienna, France, England, and x\ustria advanced in 
literature; and it is perhaps owing to these universities 
more than to all other causes, that those countries have 
swayed such an overwhelming induence, in modern times, 
in the affairs of the world. To what do we trace our 
literature ? Whence come the Popes, the Addisons, 
the Miltons? whence the Pitts, and Sheridans, and 
Johnstons? whence the Halls and theWhatelys? True, 
there are remarkable exceptions, in whom genius, fed by 
an unseen perennial spring, rises like the oak in the 
desert. But perhaps these very instances are indebted 
to the fountain of some college for the waters which 
nourish and refresh them. 

2. Colleges are needed to promote the progress of arts 



NECESSITY or COLLEGES. 285 

and sciences. Important discoveries and inventions are 
generally made by educated men. To trace the relations 
of any phenomenon, and direct it to valuable purposes, 
requires that patient, systematic reflection which can 
result only — as a general rule — from proper mental dis- 
cipline. To notice the tendencies of the magnetic needle 
was one thing, but to applv it to navigation was another; 
to observe and register the appearances of the heavenly 
bodies requires but little knowledge, but to trace the 
laws in obedience to which they move, demands a mind 
of the highest order. The princes in philosophy, astron- 
omy, and psychology, were alumni of the college. 

3. Colleges are needful to prepare young men for the 
learned professions. It will cheerfully be conceded that 
mental discipline is a prerequisite to professional studies. 
The collegiate course confers this advantage, as will ap- 
pear from a glance at what it embraces; namely, mathe- 
matics, ancient languages, natural science, and intel- 
lectual and moral philosophy. That mathematics has a 
tendency to qualify the mind for strong, patient, and 
consecutive thought, no one will deny. In this science 
the soul must keep its eyes wide open, and guide its 
powers in vigorous, onward movement, till it has evolved 
the required truth. It may be compared to a long ladder, 
with smooth and regular rounds : the mind can gain the 
summit by constant, careful, and progressive motion ; 
but a single misstep, or a cessation of effort, even at the 
last round but one, and, like the stone of Sisijphus, it 
rolls down to the foot. Lead the mind daily, for suc- 
cessive years, up this ladder, and teach it always to sit 
down, breathless, it may be, but triumphant, on the last 
round, and it will be prepared to scale walls of truth 
which have withstood the rude assaults of the battering 
ram for successive ages of undisciplined mental warfare. 

The study of ancient languages is another invaluable 



286 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

mode of mental training; one whicli has risen triumph- 
ant from every conflict with utilitarianism, and which, 
perhaps, will not be banished from the halls of learning, 
till the sounding of the last trumpet. The chief objec- 
tion to it, namely, its difficulty, proves its importance. 
It brings the mind into communion with the master 
spirits of other and golden ages, and by constantly pre- 
senting the most splendid creations of fancy, and the 
finest models of style, fires the imagination and purifies 
the taste. It is not unfavorable to faith. God is the 
author of language no less than of nature, and he has 
impressed his invisible Spirit upon the one as he has 
enstamped his almighty hand upon the other. We see 
the Spirit breathing through the souls even of uninspired 
men, and writing simple, eternal truth in characters of 
living light on even the darkest pages of error and con- 
fusion. The being and perfections of God stand forth 
no less vividly in the conversations of Socrates than in 
the lamps of heaven. There is a world of mind as well 
as of matter, and language is the medium in which its 
forms are cast. 

We may see God in the clouds of heaven, but yet 
more clearly may we trace his red right hand in the thun- 
der and lightning of the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle. 
When France abandoned the study of languages for that 
of matter and mathematics, she plunged headlong into 
vice and Atheism. The study of languages opens rich 
mines of thought, in which the treasures of the noblest 
intellects of the race have been stored. Account for it 
as we may, there were ages in the history of ancient 
states, when mind heaved up mountain thoughts from 
deep foundations. The floods of time have washed away 
the glittering dust from the regions of early literature, 
but left standing the eternal hills with their veins of 
golden ore. Law still digs in the Tribonian code; physic 



NECESSITY OF COLLEGES. 287 

explores Galen and Hippocrates; philosophy, even in the 
eighteenth century, mines in the depths of Aristotle; 
the student finds his parallelograms and triangles in 
Euclid; Demosthenes is yet the model of the orator; 
and there is Homer, like Chimborazo. Hail, blind 
old bard ! The purest streams of modern literature are 
drawn from classic fountains, and flow in classic beds. 
Nor can the transparent purity of their waters, nor the 
value of their treasures be fully perceived by one who is 
ignorant of the language of Greece and Rome. The 
classics are necessary to lead us to Siloam's well. Every 
man is indebted to the lexicon for opening his way to 
the fountain of life. 

The natural sciences are conceded by all to be appro- 
priate means of education. Botany, geology, mineralogy, 
chemistry, and natural philosophy, opening the secrets 
of material nature, glittering with recent and brilliant 
discoveries, and offering the richest rewards to their cul- 
tivators, are too fascinating to be neglected in any insti- 
tution in the civilized world; nor are they without their 
influence in disciplining the mind; they cultivate hab- 
its of attention, abstraction, and generalization; they 
strengthen the memory and the reason, and furnish beau- 
tiful and impressive illustrations for intellectual and moral 
subjects. 

The philosophy of the mind has in all ages been re- 
garded as an indispensable branch of education. It 
explains the faculties of the soul, and the laws of thought 
and feeling, and with its kindred sciences unfolds the 
principles of investigation and reasoning; teaching how 
to detect and expose fallacy, remove obscurity, develop 
truth, and show the foundation on which it stands. 
Mathematics train the mind for that reasoning in which 
we proceed from one judgment to another founded upon 
it — the premises being admitted, and the object being 



288 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

to disclose what is enveloped in previously-admitted 
propositions. But there is another kind of reasoning 
which implies investigation, where the degree of evi- 
dence for doubtful propositions must be weighed, and the 
correctness of inductions determined. For this species 
of investigation mental philosophy oflfers the appropriate 
training. 

The Bible, concerning itself with the eternal interests 
of man, belongs to every part of the system of edu- 
cation; any scheme which excludes this must be infi- 
nitely deficient. I have sketched the plan of collegiate 
education as established in England and in this coun- 
try. It is approved by the greatest minds of both 
hemispheres; it has stood the test of centuries; it pro- 
duced the illustrious founders of English literature, 
and the fathers of the freest, wisest, purest people on 
whom the sun looks down. 

I have spoken of the college course as a preparatory 
discipline for professional pursuits. There are some parts 
of it which have special value in particular professions; 
for instance, the Latin is almost indispensable to the 
student in law or medicine. All the technical language 
of these professions has been cast in the Latin tongue, 
which for many centuries was the only medium of com- 
munication in the world of letters, and which contains 
immense stores of valuable truth, inaccessible to those 
who have never mastered its grammar. Granted that we 
have many excellent physicians who have no knowledge 
of the dead languages; but how few are known beyond 
the limits of their immediate practice ? It is inquired, 
did not the ancients fall into error? Their theories may 
be worthless, but their facts are invaluable. Because the 
scientific metlioch of the present day are superior to those 
of the ancients, shall we contemptuously cast away the 
accumulated experience of antecedent ages? 



I 



NECESSITY OF COLLEGES. 289 

Natural philosophy is important to the physician. The 
heart and arteries are a hydraulic apparatus; the muscles 
are arranged according to the laws of mechanics; the 
eye is an optical instrument; the ear can not be studied 
without a desire to know the laws of acoustics; the 
lungs are a pneumatic machine ; and though the organs 
of living beings are governed by a set of peculiar laws, 
yet over these are thrown, as an outside garment, the 
laws of the inanimate world. He who has ever had 
cause to suspend a bruised arm, has felt the influence of 
gravity over the circulation of the blood. Chemistry and 
botany are intimately concerned with the materials of 
cure, and ignorance of these sciences is unpardonable in 
a physician. 

All parts of the collegiate course are important to the 
clergyman, but especially the classics. These will give 
him access to the fathers, to the documents of the 
Church, to the works of the reformers ; above all, to the 
Bible, undiluted by translation. What an indescribable 
pleasure to trace to their roots the words primarily used 
by the Spirit, and ascertain the precise ideas they were 
intended to convey ! In controversy with the heretic, 
the skeptic, the schismatic, we often find a knowledge 
of the dead languages indispensable. 

Providence seems to have trained his chief instru- 
ments for religious purposes by an elegant education. 
Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. 
Paul was versed not only in Jewish history and law, but 
in heathen poets, one of whom he quotes with fine eiSfect 
on Mars' Hill. Did not his education give him influence 
at Jerusalem, at Athens, and at Rome, and qualify him 
to plead his Master's cause in the imperial city, and 
did it not also help him when before Agrippa and the 
Areopagus ? 

When darkness and vice had oversuread Christendom, 

26 



290 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

on whom did God fix to bring in tlie light? Luther wag 
a professor in the University of Wittemburg ; Knox a 
graduate of St. Andrews; Melancthon a professor of 
Greek J Calvin, Beza, Zuinglius, and their coadjutors, 
were among the most eminent classical scholars of their 
age. When, at a subsequent period, the English Church 
sunk into lethargy, who roused her from her slumbers? 
Wesley and Fletcher were profound scholars and distin- 
guished linguists. And who were Clarke, and Watson, 
and Benson, and Bunting? 

In the present intelligent age, which plants a college 
on every inviting eminence, and spreads education wide 
as the light, the standard of education, in all the profes- 
sions, must rapidly ascend. That people which suffers 
not the painter to approach his canvas, nor the statuary 
his marble, nor the physician his patient, without a culti- 
vated mind, will not turn a listening ear to him who as- 
sumes to guide undying souls to truth, and God, and 
heaven, without having trained his own. In vain you 
reason with the world against her demands for an edu- 
cated ministry, while it is educating itself: as well try to 
stop the granite mountain from bursting upward by vol- 
canic force. 

The present age is one of controversy. It seems as 
though all the elements of faith were dissevered, and 
brought under the play of new affinities. Error comes 
forth in numerous and imposing forms, and with bold 
and powerful advocates. When did classical Cathol- 
icism more terribly threaten destruction to the Protestant 
Church ? Infidelity is not what she once was — sly, snarl- 
ing, armed only with points, antitheses, and puns — but, 
with face, footstep, arm, worthy an archangel ruined, she 
ransacks science, nature, antiquity, for intellectual arms : 
now grinning on the bights of Mexico; now raising her 
horrid form above the deep; now wandering by night 



NECESSITY OF COLLEGES. 291 

along tlie banks of the Nile with a shriveled mummy, 
and anon examining the tombs and forged chronologies of 
Asia. Finally assuming the garb of an angel of light, 
and kindling her taper at Cecropia's fires, she retires to a 
university, and endeavors, by dint of surpassing learn- 
ing, and without touching the walls or columns of the 
Church, to rob her of both altar and God. Such is the 
enemy; and shall we expect to vanquish him with old 
weapons? Would you meet the steam-gun with a Roman 
spear? Up! up! let us anoint our souls for conflict — 
conflict such as will shake earth's foundations. True, 
God's word is the only weapon; but shall we not draw 
it from the sheath of error in which the enemy hath 
wrapped it, and clean its gleaming edge? True, God^s 
strength must plunge it in the foe; but shall we not 
wield it with practiced and anointed arm? I fear not 
for the Church. Like the storm-trained bird, she soars 
highest in the rage of the tempest. Nevertheless, she 
must spread a plumed wing upon the blast. 

Superstition and enthusiasm are rife and ruinous in our 
times. The one is seen in the observance of uncom- 
manded rites, the other in the substitution of earthly 
for heavenly ardors. These foes hover on the rear and 
flank of Israel's host; and having stolen their banners 
and armor, often make slaughter without rousing resist- 
ance. As we can not know them by their armor we must 
detect them by their shibboleth. Credulity is a still 
more fearful foe; and never, since the dark ages, has it 
made more terrible havoc than at present. It is poison- 
ing all the wells of life. Let Israel's captain carry a 
bottle of logic with him wherever he moves, that he may 
drop a little of it into every pitcher he draws, and thus 
detect and precipitate the poison. 

Another demand for education in the ministry is 
founded in missionary enterprises. One hundred years 



202 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

asTO the Churcli concerned herself but little for the 
heathen : now she feels guilty if she do not consecrate 
all her powers to evangelize the world. Her great object 
can not be accomplished, however, without missionaries; 
nor is any one well qualified for a mission to pagan lands 
without a finished education. New languages must be 
acquired, the Bible translated, and the prejudices of 
ages overcome. Little would the Careys or the Morri- 
sons have achieved without classical education. 

To the clerical profession is assigned, by common con- 
sent, the control of literary institutions. Other profes- 
sions are so lucrative, that no man of distinction will for- 
sake any of them to manage a college : moreover, the in- 
fluence of religion is found indispensable to college disci- 
pline. If a Church will not have an educated ministry, 
she must consent to see all the literary institutions of 
the land in the hands of sister denominations; and if so, 
she will find her sons and daughters, in the next genera- 
tion, within the pale of those denominations. 

I notice a few objections: 

(1.) "We are departing from the old landmarks. Were 
not the preachers of Mr. Wesley ignorant men ? and did 
they not put to shame the learned clergy of the Estab- 
lished Church? Were not our fathers, the Garrettsons 
and the Lees, before whom the bulwarks of error fell, 
uneducated? Can not what has been done be repeated?'' 
Mr. Wesley's coadjutors were generally men of extraordi- 
nary intellect and energy: some of them were learned 
and eloquent, and all distinguished by ardent piety and 
untiring industry. During the lifetime of Mr. Wesley 
they enjoyed the benefit of his counsel and guidance: 
they coasted the new continent of theology by the light- 
houses which he had erected; and when assailed in- 
trenched themselves behind the bulwarks which the clas- 
Bical Fletcher had reared. Upon the decease of the 



I 



NECESSITY OF COLLEGES. 293 

Wesleys and Fletcher, there sprang up a host of scholars, 
such as Clarke and Watson across the ocean, and Emory 
and risk in the United States. Few Churches can pro- 
duce a century of richer literature than that of Meth- 
odism. The circumstances of our fathers were different 
from ours : ignorance was more general, the Church more 
apathetic, and Methodist doctrines and mode of preach- 
ing were novel and alluring. 

(2.) "The great body of Methodist clergymen have 
never had collegiate training." True, and it may be di- 
vided into two classes: the one, idle and mortified at 
their loss of influence, declaim against colleges as though 
they could maintain their relative importance by striving 
to arrest the progress of the community; the other, un- 
der a feeling of responsibility to God and the Church, 
make constant efforts to overtake their brethren of better 
attainments, and lead on their people to the van of Zion's 
army. The latter, sighing in secret "over the ghosts of 
departed hours," and lamenting the want of early train- 
ing, though incumbered by family cares and pastoral 
duties, and oppressed by poverty and affliction, ascend 
with fearless foot the rugged hights of science; and 
though they never obtain a diploma, often reach an emi- 
nence where a diploma may be scorned. Sons worthy of 
"Wesley, worthy of Methodism, born and baptized within 
the walls of Oxford, they are the strongest advocates for 
learning between the St. Lawrence and the Grulf. 

(3.) But it is asked, "Were not the apostles ignorant 
men?" For the sake of argument, I grant it; but they 
were inspired: they wrought miracles; they uttered 
unmingled wisdom; their words were Grod's. When min- 
isters can raise the dead they may dispense with education. 
But were the apostles ignorant? Did not Jesus keep 
them under his pupilage three years, and by a miracle 
make them all classical scholars? Let a man learn to 



294 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

read and write Greek, and talk in all the languages of 
the earth, before he boasts of equal learning with the 
apostles. 

(4.) It is said, ^^ Colleges will be perverted, and the 
ministry will be regarded as a mere learned profession, to 
which any man may be trained.'' In other words, the 
Church, when she becomes learned, will cease to be pious, 
and fall into error. Is it so, that the more man knows 
of the works of the Creator, the less is he disposed to 
venerate him ? What ! is not the study of nature one 
of the employments of heaven ? and is not one element 
of its praises the sublime song, "Great and marvelous 
are thy works. Lord God Almighty?" Did the study 
of mind make Locke an infidel, or the examination of 
nature make Newton a Deist? Do all the forms of error 
and schism issue from cultivated intellect? We are 
very fearful of the errors of education: but is there no 
fear from those of ignorance? Errors do not always 
issue, Minerva-like, from the Church's brain, but oftener 
slough off from her gangrened extremities. 

According to my observation, true knowledge has a 
favorable effect on faith. Revivals of religion are as fre- 
quent, as powerful, and as permanent in colleges and 
seminaries as in any of our Churches. Thousands of the 
brightest ornaments of Zion were converted to God in 
institutions of learning. I have seen much of Christian 
character, in all its forms. I have witnessed it in the 
negro's hut, the sailor's hammock, the Indian's wigwam, 
the convict's cell, and the rich man's mansion — I have 
seen it in the ocean's storm, the chamber of sickness, 
the pillow of the dying, and the house of the dead ; but 
never have I witnessed a more triumphant faith, nor a 
more lovely exemplification of all the graces that adorn 
the Christian character, than I have witnessed within the 
halls of learning. I have never yet known a man to 



NECESSITY OP COLLEGES. 295 

enter a seminary a Christian and depart an infidel; but 
many have I known to enter the hall of learning infidels, 
who are now stars in the firmament of the Church. 

(5.) '^The ministry is of divine origin, and needs no aid 
from learning." I grant the office of the ministry is pe- 
culiar. The ministsr is divinely commissioned, qualified, 
and aided. He has peculiar feelings. While he groans 
beneath a load that might make an angel cry out, "Who 
is sufficient for these things?'' he pillows his aching head 
on the bosom of Jesus, and says, in the depths of his 
heart, "I can do all things, through Christ, which 
strengtheneth me.'' His ideas of the soul, its value, its 
dangers, the necessity of its immediate salvation — his 
visions of the throne of the final Judge, the fires of the 
last day, the wine-press of Divine vengeance, and the 
glory of the redeemed, compel him to be eloquent. 
When he hears the wailings of the lost, or listens to the 
praises of the redeemed, or gazes upon the dying victim 
of Calvary, though without learning, he stands the very 
personification of wisdom, and without rhetoric the per- 
sonification of eloquence. Who shall describe the phys- 
ical energy of the man who sees his fellow upon the 
verge of a burning house, and lifts the ladder for his res- 
cue? What angel can describe the intellectual jyower of 
that man who sees his brother's soul upon the very mouth 
of the pit, and the flames of perdition curling around him ? 
The minister receives Divine aid. It is stated of a 
celebrated clergyman, that he dreamed one night that he 
was preaching, and that the altar was full of angels, 
looking with interest, first upon him and then upon 
the audience, marking the effect of every syllable as it fell 
upon each soul. The next day he preached, and the 
bare thought of his dream inspired him with unearthly 
eloquence. But the man of Grod may, if he will, see by 
faith a greater sight than this — the eye of Jesus looking 



296 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

for the purchase of his blood, and watching with anxiety 
the movements of his lips. The prophet, with anointed 
vision, saw himself encompassed with chariots of fire; 
but the preacher sees around him an invisible God. And 
then there is an anointing of the soul, a sanctifying energy 
in the word, a preparation of the audience, which spreads 
a sense of the Divine presence, and makes the entrance 
of the word give life. 



" When one who hokls communion with the skies, 
And dips his urn where those pure waters rise, 
Dotli once more mingle with us meaner things, 
As though an angel shook his wings, 
Immortal fragrance spreads the circuit wide. 
And tells us whence his treasures are supplied." 



Notwithstanding all this an apostle says, "Give attend 
ance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine, meditate 
upon these things, give thyself wholly to them, that thy 
profiting may appear to all." 

4. Colleges are necessary to popular education. In 
vain may government make munificent endowments for 
common schools unless colleges furnish qualified teachers. 
To suppose that any man may teach a child is a great 
mistake. Scarce any employment demands more mental 
discipline, and furniture, and elevation, than that of the 
school-teacher. He unites the offices of president, pro- 
fessor, and tutor. He needs to be a walking encyclope- 
dia. Would it not be better to divert school funds to the 
endowments of colleges, than to neglect colleges, and pay 
exclusive attention to common schools? From the col- 
lege there will go forth the qualified teacher; and though 
there may be a total neglect of the district school, he 
will soon attract children around him, and draw forth an 
adequate support. But neglect the college, and your 
school fund will be squandered — ^your children abused. 

Colleges are the foundations of our liberties — the bul- 



^ 



NECESSITY OF COLLEGES. 297 

warks of our freedom. New England and Virginia col- 
leges gave us Adams, Hawley, Hancock, Jefferson — the 
lights of the Continental Congress. They furnished the 
eloquence which roused the colonies, and the bravery 
which first poured out its blood in the cause of Ameri- 
can liberty. To them we are indebted not only for the 
Declaration of Independence and the American Constitu- 
tion, but for that general intelligence without which our 
liberties would be valueless. We owe New England much 
for her Hancocks and Warrens, but more for her school- 
masters. 

The freedom of a country depends upon its intelli- 
gence. Grovernment always shapes itself to the character 
of its subjects. Gro to the regions of darkness, and you 
find despotism binding on its fetters; and ascending, you 
find that, as the light increases, the fetters loosen, till 
you reach the summit, where you have the American 
Constitution. 

Without general intelligence liberty is a curse. Sylla 
offered liberty to Kome; but she preferred to the prof- 
fered freedom a despot like himself, who could shed the 
blood of six thousand countrymen in a day, and coolly 
say to the inquiring senate, alarmed at the groans of the 
dying Romans, that he was merely chastising a few reb- 
els. She thought it better to have a royal tyrant, than to 
unbind the cords from an ignorant multitude, and let un- 
numbered daggers leap from their scabbards. How was 
it under the feudal system? The petty landholders 
found it necessary to become the slaves of some despotic 
baron, to protect themselves from a host of inferior but 
more unreasonable tyrants. Under Charles T, the Eng- 
lish people asserted their freedom; but what was the 
state of things under the Commonwealth ? Party against 
party, and man against man, till Charles II was hailed as 
a deliverer. 



298 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

The South American states, with all the advantages 
of our example, encouragement, and counsel, have failed 
to establish free government. It is impossible to make 
a people free in advance of their intelligence. Much as 
I love liberty, I would not, if I could, wave the star- 
spangled banner at the head of every army. There are 
nations who would tear it to pieces in less than twenty- 
four hours. What shall preserve American liberties? 
Not armies, nor navies, but colleges and churches. 

But it is asked, "■ Whence the necessity of so much 
money?" The college should be the depository of the 
learning of ages. We need a library such as might serve 
a republic. Many in their veneration for the Bible re- 
fuse all other books, and use, with a little variation, the 
syllogism of the Saracen invader, when he burned the 
Alexandrian Library : " If these books contain what is 
in the Koran, they are not wanted ; if they contain what 
is not in the Koran, they ought to be burned." But we 
hope they will not go so far as to burn our books. If 
these men build with stone axes, let them not deny us 
the benefit of modern art. We need extensive appa- 
ratus. This is necessary for the instruction of the stu- 
dent. It is requisite for other purposes. Should a 
Watt, or a Davy, or a Fulton, wish to make experiments, 
with a view to the improvement of some machinery to 
extend the dominion of man over matter, the college 
should present him with the means. Should some new 
mineral be shot from the heavens, or picked up on the 
field, the college should be able to efi"ect its analysis. 
We need an extensive cabinet, to receive from past ages 
their natural and artificial curiosities, and to treasure up 
our own, and transmit both to posterity. The college 
should not be a little tread-mill, but a vast field, em- 
bracing the universe in miniature, and offering for con- 
templation every variety of the Creator's work. 



NECESSITY OF COLLEGES. 299 

The college should have its professorships endowed, 
and thus be able to offer its advantages to the poor as 
well as the rich. If colleges were unendowed, they 
would be accessible only to the sons of fortune, and con- 
sequently would be of little value to community. The 
sons of rich men, relying on their inheritance, are gen- 
erally idle, and even when they leave a college with 
honor, promise little to community. They have no in- 
ducement to enter the professions, or into agricultural or 
commercial enterprise; and the business of teaching 
they regard with scorn. The great benefit of the col- 
lege arises from its endowment. It is this which opens 
its hall to the poor, prevents a monopoly of learning in 
the hands of the rich, and trains up the vigorous minds 
of the age to bless their own and succeeding generations. 

5. ''Men may educate themselves." I affirm this with 
emphasis, and would impress it. I admire the self-edu- 
cated man. Who is he? Not that half-educated, self- 
conceited, self-willed being, who grins at his errors, and 
congratulates himself that he has ''never been to col- 
lege;" but that noble spirit who, in defiance of poverty 
and difficulty, mounts, with untiring foot, the rugged 
precipice of science, and cheerfully beckons the world 
upward to his lofty eminence. Can not a man be great 
without a college ? A rational, undying soul, dropped 
from heaven into a beautiful universe, ought to conceive 
immortal thought. A spirit, leaping from the bosom 
of Grod, and sweeping the compass of created things, 
should give out sparks from collision with its fellow- 
spirit. What though the soul have no books 1 Can it 
not launch upon the ocean of truth, and ascending the 
topmast, see far into the dim distances of philosophy, or 
plunging into the abyss of its own powers, bring up jewels 
from hidden caves, or hanging the rich harp-strings of 
its heart to the wild winds of heaven, waken tones that 



800 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

might chord with the song of the skies ? Nature is full 
of sciences. Has ancient hand gathered every truth from 
the earthy and swept every lesson from the heaven ? If 
Mediterranean islands inspired immortal song, can not 
the scenes of a new world wake intellect and heart to 
action ? Is there no green upon our earth, no freshness 
in our ocean ? is there no wildness in our rocks, no maj- 
esty on our mountains, no music in our bubbling runnels, 
no glory in our matchless streams? Answer, ye beau- 
teous vales and sunny hills — Alleghanies and Andes j 
speak Mississippi, and Huron, and Erie; and thou, Ni- 
agara, thunder the lie to such an imputation. But it is 
said, as the mythology of Greece and Rome spread a 
charm over nature, and stimulated human intellect to the 
highest point of sublimity, therefore we have not such ad- 
vantages for the production of noble conception. I repel 
with scorn the charge. What though no Satyrs dance 
upon the green, no Fauns and Dryads hide among our 
oaks, no Neptune rises from our waves, no Jupiter thun- 
ders in our heavens — what though no jEoIus rides upon 
the imprisoned storm, no wind-footed Iris spreads her 
wings upon the rainbow, yet above all, and through all, 
and in all, there rises on the Christian the great I Am, 
before whose face heathen gods and goddesses fly, and 
there is no place found for them. Though the infidel 
may bathe his soul for thirty, forty, fifty years in a uni- 
verse filled with God, and, by some strange chemistry of 
depravity, preserve his soul in a vacuum, from which the 
Divinity is shut out, yet the Christian, whether in hight 
or depth, in things present or things to come, with man 
or with angels, in life or in death, finds his spirit plunged 
in the noblest conceptions. 

Some of the tallest, strongest thought that ever leaped 
into eternity from human intellect, sprang from self-edu- 
cated head. Our own shores have produced, without the 



NECESSITY OF COLLEGES. 301 

aid of colleges^ some of the finest specimens of human 
nature. Henry, Washington, Franklin, Marshall, have 
illustrated their country. Their names will be pro- 
nounced with veneration long as Bunker Hill, or the 
American Constitution, or heaven's own lightning is a 
subject of contemplation to civilized man. The soul is 
full of sciences. There is Shakspeare, nature's favorite, 
mighty by the force of his own genius. He descends 
into the depths of his own soul. Here he analyzes mys- 
terious combinations of human thought and feeling, and 
combines at will the elements of motive and desire. 
Here hangs the lamp which lights him through the 
dark mines of human depravity; and here he finds the 
battery with which he gives the world successive shocks. 
Revelation is full of sciences. It is accessible to all. 
There needs no geology to see God upon its Sinai, no 
chemistry to gather manna from its wilderness, no math- 
ematics to survey its Calvary. True, archaeology, and the 
classics, and history may throw new beauties over many 
of its fields, and reveal a thousand hidden treasures, 
but, void of them all, attended by simple faith, the 
soul is happy — its feet find an eternal rock for their 
foundation — its lungs a vital breath, and all its senses 
are charmed, Diamonds may lie concealed in its mines, 
unknown flowers bloom among its cedars, but all that is 
fundamental and essential rises like Alpine summits to 
the soul. 

Is there any thing in religious philosophy, languages, 
mathematics, or natural science, which can not be sur- 
mounted by a vigorous, unaided, persevering mind ? Let 
Euclid, Watt, Davy, Burritt answer. 

Grant, then, that a man can educate himself; but how 
few icoulcl ever become educated if left to themselves ! 
Man is naturally indolent. Were not appetite, self-love, 
and passion strong, he would lie and rot, body and soul. 



302 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

Thougli ordinary impulses are sufficient to excite men to 
physical labor, yet they are inadequate to rouse tliem to 
intellectual toil. Of those who resolve to educate them- 
selves scarce one in five succeeds. They usually start off 
like a spirited horse, but soon tire, and find they have no 
spur sharp enough to prick the sides of their intent. 
Even the stimuli of the college — emulation, encourage- 
ment, the task, the command — are insufficient in four 
cases out of ten. The most powerful and resolute that 
ever gained the summit of fame, has often found a 
mountain gorge, where, in almost utter despair, his soul 
has cried out, ^^Help! help! or I fall!'' The blast of 
the bugle, the neighing of the charger, the gleam of 
the battle-blade, the folds of the banner, the thought 
of home, of altar, of ancestral graves, the vision of the 
vengeful foe, nerve the soldier's foot on the bloody 
hight; but when the student comes to a pass, different, 
but not less fearful than Thermopylae, what is there in 
the retirement of the study to supply burning coals to 
his chilled heart-strings? 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 303 



f 0p, lit its Ittotas t0 lleMntI Sritntt* 

I SHOULD have promptly declined the invitation of 
your Faculty to deliver an address, at this Commence- 
ment, but for the fact that I declined a similar invita- 
tion from the same source, on last year. I should have 
done so, however, not from any unwillingness to gratify 
your excellent corps of instructors or to contribute my 
mite toward your annual collegiate festivities, but because 
my duties and my state of health deny me both the 
time and the elasticity necessary to prepare for so novel 
and choice an occasion. I make this statement, that you 
may neither ascribe the crudeness of my production to a 
want of respect for my hearers, nor my appearance before 
you to an insensibility to my own deficiencies, but that 
you may be induced to give me an indulgent hearing, by 
considering that, in asking your attention, I oppress my- 
self, to avoid the imputation of disobliging your professors. 
I experienced no little embarrassment in the selection 
of a theme, and it was not till after much reflection 
that I made up my mind to commend to your special 
attention the science of logic. If the subject be deemed 
inappropriate, lay not the blame on your Faculty, who 
did not select, or even suggest it. If it be deemed un- 
welcome, I trust you will pardon the speaker, when you 
learn, that he, having once belonged to your profession, 
and felt the want of the science to which he would 

® An address delivered before the Starling Medical College, at its third 
annual Commencement, 1851. 



JJOd EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

attract your attention, would fain have you avoid some 
of the difficulties which he encountered. 

My proposition will be sustained, by glancing at the 
nature of the science alluded to, and by showing that 
medical men are not likely to acquire it, in their ordinary 
professional walks. We would not derogate from the 
merits of the profession ; rather would we exalt it. 

Logic is the science and art of reasoning. I emphasize 
the article because some regard logic as concerned with 
a species, of which reasoning is the genus; whereas, it is 
the only science and art of reasoning: he who reasons 
correctly, must reason logically. It is of no consequence 
to object, that many, who are versed in logic, reason 
poorly; for logic can neither supply premises, nor the 
intellectual power necessary to their . skillful employment. 
It is equally vain to object, that many, who know nothing 
of dialectics, nevertheless reason ably; for extraordinary 
mental power, together with competent information on 
any particular subject, will enable any one to reason well 
on that subject. This does not prove logic to be of no 
consequence. An orator speaks, and nations are en- 
tranced; the critic analyzes the oration, and deduces 
from it the laws according to which it is composed — thus 
we have the science of rhetoric. A nation constructs a 
language; the grammarian ascertains its principles — ■ 
thus we have the science of grammar. A dialectician 
reasons; his argument convinces all who understand it; 
the logician examines it, and finds the principle upon 
which it is built; he examines another and another, of 
similar power, till, after a sufficient induction, he con- 
cludes, that all rest upon the same principle; he de- 
velops, illustrates, and applies this principle, and thus 
gives us the science and art of reasoning. 

Though practice may go before science, science may 
correct and improve practice. The rules of logic corre- 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 305 

spond to tliose of grammar and criticism, and they sub- 
serve these two important ends: they go far toward 
placing men of moderate abilities upon a level, in re- 
spect of reasoning, with those of genius; and they 
enable all, who understand them, to ascertain when they 
have framed an argument that will stand the test '^of 
scrutiny, of talents, and of time.'' 

The remarks which follow have special reference to 
medical practitioners in the west. That we should be 
wanting in dialectics is not surprising; a large majority 
of us entered upon the study of our profession without 
having enjoyed the benefits of collegiate training — many, 
indeed, without even an academical education. We do 
not advert to this in a censorious spirit. The circum- 
stances of our country have been such as to preclude all 
but a few of her youth from classical halls. Of these 
few, many have been allured by the temptations of a 
more lucrative profession, and others have been drawn 
to the duties of a more sacred one, leaving but a small 
residue for the healing art. 

The youth who has never been trained to accurate 
reasoning, will not be likely to acquire it in medical 
studies ; they are historical, rather than scientific. So far 
as they are historical, they are natural, descriptive of 
being and phenomena only; so far as they are scientific, 
they are practical, rather than speculative ; and so far as 
speculative, natural, not mathematical or moral. First, 
the student is conducted to the skeleton, whose dry bones 
never awaken his powers of reasoning, however much 
they may challenge his observation and exercise his 
memory. From the skeleton he goes to the cadaver, 
which, while it calls for discrimination and trains his 
hand to a dexterous use of the knife, only now and then, 
when it presents an incidental question concerning the 

merits of a certain discoverer, or advances to the re- 

26 



306 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

lated science of physiology, calls for a connected chain 
of thought — judgment. Next, he is led to the labora- 
tory, where he is introduced, in regular order, to a set of 
elements and compounds, which are cognizable to sense, 
and to a series of beautiful truths illustrated by experi- 
ment, affording no room for doubt, and rarely inviting 
him to metaphysical research. 

T am aware that discoverers in chemistry, as in most 
other sciences, are metaphysicians, but they study ana- 
lytically, while learners are taught synthetically ; so that 
the student of chemistry who can best memorize, can best 
endure examination. Similar observations may be made 
with reference to materia medica, botany, zoology, and 
mineralogy. When the student has mastered these sci- 
ences, he is generally hurried into private or hospital 
practice, to learn by observation the arts of chirurgery 
and therapeutics. If he prescribe in a few cases suc- 
cessfully, and acquire the use of the instruments em- 
ployed in the more common operations of the surgeon, 
he enters with a good degree of confidence upon the 
responsibilities of practice. He adopts the routine of 
his instructors; he is as fortunate as his competitors; in 
ordinary cases he manages without embarrassment, and 
in extraordinary ones, he keeps within the rules of the 
books; upon the whole, he satisfies himself that he is 
leading a useful life. But what is he but an empiric? — • 
I use the term in the proper sense; he proceeds on 
rules and methods founded on practice and experience. 
not on any knowledge of natural causes. If he have 
either the low desire of advancing his own interests, or 
the high ambition of promoting those of mankind, he 
may ascend through physiology, etiology, and pathology, 
to the study of theoretical medicine; but here he will 
find the need of habits of reasoning; and if he have 
not previously formed them, or be not possessed of 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 307 

superior genius and indomitable perseverance^ he will grow 
weary of his task and sink down to the low walks of the 
mere practitioner. There is nothing in the collateral 
studies of the profession to counteract this tendency. 
What are placed in this category belong to the natural 
sciences, such as geology, climatology, and medical topoc:- 
raphy. 

Formerly, one, at least, of the ancient languages was 
deemed, if not a prerequisite to medical studies, a re- 
lated acquirement; for medicine once had a general 
medium — the Latin. Now, in our country, at least, a 
knowledge of our own tongue only is deemed needful for 
the medical student; indeed, the study of the beau- 
tiful media through which flowed the treasures of an- 
cient Grecian and Roman mind, is generally depreci- 
ated. It is not my purpose to show how much we 
have lost by the decline of linguistic studies, else I 
might point out the benefits derived to the medical stu- 
dent from an acquaintance with the tongue in which the 
technical terms of his art are cast, in which its illustri- 
ous authors of former ages wrote, and which alone opens 
to him the mines of knowledge deposited in the works 
of Boerhaave, Borelli, and similar ones, of ages ante- 
cedent to theirs. We might, also, show the importance 
of a permanent, general, transparent medium for the pro- 
fession, by which the discoveries of one nation might 
soon be made the property of all. I simply point to the 
fact, that the study of language would, by training the 
mind to abstraction and enticing it to practice the deli- 
cate arts of a refined logic, resist the tendency to em- 
piricism, if it did not allure to abstruse investigation. 

He who is adventurous enough to cultivate medical 
science without logical habits, will find but little in 
medical authors to supply this deficiency. They are gen- 
erally didactic rather than controversial, and when they 



808 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

present us with argumentation it rarely approaclies the 
syllogistic form. As I am not prepared to compare the 
writers of different professions^ I must speak interroga- 
tively. Has medicine any works which for argumenta- 
tive ability can be compared with those of Black- 
stone, Kent, Story? or of Chillingworth, Warburton, and 
Paley? The chief work of Paley, for example, will bear 
the strictest logical examination ; each argument may be 
traced from the ultimate conclusion to the first premiss 
without evincing a fault; it may be represented by 
symbols, so that its conclusiveness shall appear without 
considering the meaning of the terms. The Divine Le- 
gation of Warburton opens with a series of arguments 
nearly syllogistic, and it is throughout replete with rigid 
reasoning. The principal work of Chillingworth is read 
by many arguists merely with a view to strengthen the 
reasoning faculty. Both law and divinity have works in 
course which train the mind to reason, and to which 
medicine has nothing corresponding; such as books on 
the subject of "Evidence." How is it with medical 
teachers? (I know there are noble exceptions.) Is it 
not the tendency of the college to treat medicine en- 
tirely as an experimental art? Again and again we hear^ 
ex cathedra, the exclamation, "Away with jjvmcijylesj 
give us /acts; away with causes, give us effects; away 
with theory, let us have practice.^' We need not say how 
much such exclamations degrade the science, how they 
sanction the popular fashion of estimating the physician 
by the number of his facts, and thrusting aside the scien- 
tific youth for the ignorant matron. I need not point out 
the fallacy which lurks beneath them, for you may readily 
perceive that a principle may embody a thousand facts, 
an antecedent may be worth more than a consequent, 
and practice, however had, implies some theory. My 
purpose is to inquire whether it does not encourage idle- 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 809 

nesS; and check the best tendencies and the highest as- 
pirations of the pupil. The physician should value facts, 
should collect them, but he should also compare, abstract, 
generalize ; nor should he lightly esteem the theory of 
a distinguished author merely because he has not him- 
self witnessed the facts on which it rests — he might as 
well doubt that the earth revolves, because he has not 
scientifically demonstrated that truth. Nor should we fail 
to observe, that a man who confines himself to the beaten 
track may have a far more limited experience than the 
theorist who takes wide surveys, and marks cases in 
every variety of modification. Kindred to the disregard 
of theory is the contempt of hypothesis, for theory and 
hypothesis are not synonymous. Theory signifies a con- 
nected arrangement of facts according to their bearing 
on a law; hypothesis, an assumption, which is conceived 
to support a law; thus the connected facts which point 
to the law of gravitation is a theory; the supposition of 
a subtile fluid, which is presumed to explain these facts, 
is a hypothesis. A hypothesis, so far from being de- 
spised, should be valued according as it explains more 
or fewer of the circumstances of the phenomenon to 
which it is applied. If it explain all of them, it is 
highly probable, and may, after a time, acquire certainty; 
as for example, the hypothesis of Kepler, that the 
planets moved in elliptic orbits, which, though received 
with hesitancy at first, has so explained successive as- 
tronomical discoveries and computations as to take rank 
with established laws. Even when a hypothesis is not 
thus fortunate, it may, by suggesting experiments, inti- 
mating inventions, and animating to further researches, 
vastly increase our stock of knowledge and multiply the 
arts of a profession. What though a hypothesis be 
imaginary, is it therefore to be despised? Imagination is 
the handmaid of science; the most illustrious philoso- 



310 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

phers have honored her, and been allured onward in the 
path of discovery by her rainbows; if you doubt it, go 
learn of Archimedes, or listen to the eloquence of Bacon, 
or sit at the feet of Rush. Indeed, imagination is the 
great conceiver and bold discoverer of new worlds, the 
Columbus of the human faculties; ewerj instantia crucis 
is a call for her aid. Mark the beautiful series of ex- 
periments which led Sir Humphrey Davy to the inven- 
tion of the safety-lamp, and you see her going before. 
He first ascertains in what proportions the mixture of 
fire-damp and atmospheric air is explosive; he next de- 
termines at what temperature the mixture detonates. It 
had long been known that if the explosive compound 
were passed through a tube, and set on fire, the flame 
would not pass back through the tube to cause explosion. 
The last point to be ascertained was, how short might be 
the tube consistent with safety; to determine this, he 
cuts off successively very narrow sections till he reduces 
it to a mere metallic ring, and he finds this sufficient to 
prevent explosion ; finally, he ascertains that the flame 
of the mixture will not pass through wire gauze. He is 
now ready to construct the safety-lamp. 

I know that innumerable errors, and almost inextrica- 
ble confusion, have resulted from a misapplication of the 
speculative understanding, but shall we, therefore, re- 
press it? he who does so checks powers as original, as 
lawful, as useful as the senses themselves — powers which 
it is as blasphemous to neglect, as it is wicked to abuse; 
powers on which social and scientific progress depend, 
and which, more than any other, ally man to the higher 
orders of being. 

The phT/sician will find still less in the practice, than in 
the studT/ of medicine, to stimulate the reasoning power. 
Observation, diagnosis, prescription, and prognosis, con- 
stitute the circle of his duties — a circle through which 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 311 

he may pass by rule, as well as reason. When he meets 
his fellows in counsel, is he not accustomed to oppose dic- 
tum to dictum, experience to experience, rather than argu- 
ment to argument? At the bedside and in the office, he 
is an autocrat. Should any one call in question his pre- 
scription, he has a right to say, ''How dare you dispute 
my authority?" I do not say this is wrong, but unfortu- 
nate. The lawyer is compelled to be an arguist j whether 
acting as attorney, counselor, or solicitor, he is called on 
to define words, compare laws, weigh evidence, analyze 
motives; in all things, he must abide the scrutiny of his 
peers : in the strong conflicts of the bar, where mind 
grapples with mind, where argument meets argument, 
thought leaps to thought, and witticism flashes to witti- 
cism; where all the resources of subtilty and acuteness, 
all the cavils of the critical and captious spirit, and all 
the energies of vigorous and enterprising intellect, have 
free scope, he must either prove himself a logician, or 
resign his place to one who can. 

So it is with the minister; he must define, he must 
argue; persuasion is his business; this depends upon 
conviction, and conviction upon argument. In the 
Church, he moves through armed ranks of errorists and 
heretics; in the world, he meets on all sides the despe- 
rate hosts of a depraved philosophy; in his most peaceful 
moods and attitudes, he must give a reason of the hope 
that is in him, and train up disciples fully persuaded in 
their own minds. Even at the bedside of the sick, and 
the pillow of the dying, he must satisfy the cravings of 
human reason, as well as of human affections. 

Do not understand me to say that physicians may not 
possess all the dialectical skill and mental energy of other 
men, but that their profession does not demand it of 
them. 

But some one may inquire, " Are not doctors the most 



312 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

contentious of men?" In all civilized lands, the tocsin 
of a medical war is continually sounding — a war bloodless 
for the most part, though not always bootless — a war in 
which we see 

" Hypocrisy with smiling grace, 
And impudence with brazen face ; 
Contention bold, with iron lungs, 
And slander with her hundred tongues." 

This war, however, is not because they have too much 
logic, but too little; had they more argumentation, they 
would have fewer disagreements; did they look each 
other in the eye, week by week, and state propositions, 
define terms, test arguments, methinks they would be 
more fraternal; they might still dijBfer in theory, disagree 
in opinion, and vary in practice; they might occasionally 
be provoked by covetousness to contention, and by envy 
to strife ; but their differences would not lead to such al- 
tercations, their disagreements to such disputes, their va- 
riances to such dissensions, and their contention and 
strife to such irritation and ill-blood, as to fix upon them 
the distinction of ^'^ genus irritabile.'' 

How is it with other professions ? Ministers differ — 
they contend too — they often come to blows apostolic, not 
in the Hudibrastic sense, but in the literal ; they burn 
each other, not in the old method, with piles of fagots, 
but piles of propositions; they surround each other with 
grammars, and lexicons, and polyglots, and after the 
battle, they shake hands, and find that, though they are 
opponents or adversaries, they are not foes — often they dis- 
cover that they are brothers beloved. So with lawyers — 
they sometimes rush upon each other like tigers, and it 
would seem as though the Temple of Justice must be 
deluged with blood, but no sooner is the contest over, 
than they are harmless and loving as lambs. As a house 
without a chimney, so is a body of men without discus- 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 313 

sion. Tlie pulpit is the flue for the ministry, the bar 
for the law, but, alas ! where is the outlet for medical 
smoke ? 

I proceed to remark, that there is nothing in the pre- 
vailing philosophy of the times to promote dialectics. 
AYe still feel the reaction from scholasticism. Of the 
schoolmen, it is customary to speak in terms of con- 
tempt — a feeling which we are apt to transfer from these 
misguided men to their favorite science. But what 
though their questions were often frivolous, their prem- 
ises fanciful, and their aims unreasonable, shall logic 
be blamed? Nay, so far as they employed this science, 
they were useful. To the vulgar, it may be allowed to 
sneer at such men as Roscellinus; but to the philosopher, 
it belongs to trace back the illumination which distin- 
guishes France, Germany, and England, in great measure 
to the adoption of the scholastic method, and to see in 
the substitution of stern reasoning for a blind acquies- 
cence to authority, the beginning of that reformation 
which has given to enlightened nations religious free- 
dom. But it is vain to reason with those who will not 
hear — we must sufi'er yet a while from the contempt of 
logic resulting from the misapplication of it by the 
schoolmen. 

When these men had long wasted their energies in 
labors which, however invigorating to the mind, were 
necessarily barren of discovery. Lord Bacon arose — 
Bacon ! a name associating peerless power, matchless elo- 
quence, and extensive knowledge, with unblushing bri- 
bery, base ingratitude, heartless treachery, parasitical 
flattery, and cold and selfish aff"ections — Bacon! a philos- 
pher who, in works erudite, profound, and radiant 
with original thought, enumerated the defects and omis- 
sions of his predecessors, classified the various branches 
of science, and pointed out their relation to the human 

27 



314 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

faculties ; wlio mapped out the region of known knowl- 
edge, and pointed the way to the fields of unhiown ; who 
investigated the causes which vitiated and retarded sci- 
ence, and whose crowning achievement was, that he re- 
called man to the study of nature — taught him to ob- 
serve, experiment, infer; for this is the basis of the 
Novum Organon Scientiarum. Great as was his merit, 
he was perhaps overrated. Letters had been revived, 
printing invented, and the world aroused to freedom of 
discussion before he arose; still, he is the father of mod- 
ern philosophy, and it is the pride of scientific men to 
follow his footsteps and halt at his bidding. In doing so, 
however, they may debar themselves access to fruitful 
regions of truth, forego legitimate methods of research, 
and fall into errors which cripple the intellectual powers. 
The Baconian philosophy is very imperfect. Its whole 
circle of observation is external. But there is an inter- 
nal circle composed of first truths — truths which it were 
madness to deny, and folly to attempt to prove — such 
truths as these : matter and mind have uniform and fixed 
laws; qualities imply a substance. Without such princi- 
ples, reason could not move a step. He who doubts the 
first of the propositions just stated, can not complete the 
simplest process of induction. He who doubts the 
second, can have no knowledge of either mind or matter. 
Besides these principles, there rises and shines within 
the soul, ideas which experience never could furnish — 
ideas based upon the succession, relations, and infinite of 
things — ideas necessary, absolute, eternal. There are 
also impulses which they awaken. Who feels not within 
his brain a reed that can measure earth and heaven, mys- 
terious feet that leap into infinity, and fiery wings that, 
cutting the boundaries of time, soar behind the hour that 
saw the earth arise, and rush exulting beyond the day 
that shall see the heavens rolled together as a scroll ! 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 315 

But it is not this imperfection itself of the Baconian 
philosophy, on which we would fix your attention^ but a 
certain result of this imperfection. It confines our 
minds to experience ; it does not cultivate abstraction — 
that power whose strength in any individual is usually 
the measure of his logical ability. 

The Baconian philosophy, representing induction as 
the sole method in all branches of knowledge, banishes 
deduction. 

Induction ascends from particulars to universals; de- 
duction from universals to particulars. Induction leads 
up fact after fact, till a general principle is established; 
deduction unfolds the assertions wrapped up in a general 
principle, and shows its various bearings. Induction dis- 
covers truth not formerly possessed; deduction discloses 
truth not formerlj perceived. Induction requires caution 
and judgment; deduction requires logical skill. Induc- 
tion is chiefly a process of investigation; deduction is, 
throughout, a process of strict reasoning. Induction 
infers; deduction proves. If this be a correct represent- 
ation, you see not only the error of asserting that induc- 
tion is the only scientific method, but how this error 
tends to repress and discredit dialectics. 

The characteristic tendencies of the age are averse to the 
cultivation of the deductive intellect. We are eminently 
a practical, not a sj^ecidative people ; so, indeed, were our 
ancestors. The Anglo-Saxons seem to have inherited the 
characteristics of Eome, as the Germans have those of 
Greece. The former aim to do what is to be done, as the 
latter to thinJc what is to be thought. Our prevailing tend- 
ency is manifest, not only in our philosophy, but our 
tastes, our habits, our pursuits. Ours is not the land of 
glorious epics, of metaphysical researches, of students 
for life. We are formed for activity — not contemplation. 
We tear up our forests before they can become classical. 



316 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

Should a poetical lover choose an elm to immortalize its 
Bhade, his muse would hardly be invoked before the echo 
of the woodman's ax would frighten her away. We have 
our ^Hhoughts that breathe, and words that burn ;'^ but 
our breathing is through the steam-pipe, and our burning 
is by the furnace. We have our wire-drawn distinctions, 
but they are drawn over poles to distinguish turnpike 
roads. We have our 77iirabiles anwres, but they are all 
resolvable into the sacra fames auri. We are utilitarians, 
and we measure our achievements by the mason's square 
and weigh our gains in the scale avoirdupois. We do 
every thing in haste. Even divines and doctors, like 
boots and bridges, are made in a hurry. Our hurry has 
led us into an excessive division of labor, which, however 
favorable to the development of resources, is not so to 
the development of mind. 

The old universities, where the faculties of law, medi- 
cine, and divinity sit side by side, as members of the 
same family, surrounded by their younger sisters, the lib- 
eral arts, promoting each other's edification, cherishing 
each others affection, advancing each other's interests, 
and defending each other's honor, do not seem to suit us. 
We divorce the professions, and surround them with sep- 
arate fortifications, to dwell in a sort of Chinese exclu- 
siveness, or fire into each other's bastions. Instead of 
building to science a glorious temple, to be ascended by 
successive steps, we build a number of one-story halls, so 
that a doctor, or lawyer, or divine, may learn his profes- 
sion with no more preparation than a carpenter his trade. 
Not content with separating the professional faculties 
from the liberal arts, we often sunder the liberal arts 
themselves, and allow the student to elect his own stud- 
ies, instead of directing him in that course which will 
bring out all his powers in fair proportions. 

The tendencies to which I have adverted, afford so 



I 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 317 

many arguments, from cause to effect, to show, that phy- 
sicians are not likely to manifest those mental traits 
which are not cultivated by their profession, and, as the 
reasoning power is not of this description, that they may 
be expected to be deficient in this, unless they specially 
cultivate it, I proceed to strengthen the argument, by 
pointing out some of the consequences of this want of 
logic in the medical profession, and thus argue from 
effect to cause. 

1. Their discussions are often endless. That doctors 
disagree, has passed into a proverb. But do not divines 
disagree also? True; but their disagreement is rather doc- 
trinal than practical. The disagreement of physicians is 
principally practical; and when theoretical, it is often in 
relation to points, concerning which it would appear that 
there certainly could be a definitive settlement. Such, 
for example, as whether medicines are ever absorbed, and 
taken into the general circulation. But, would logic 
tend to abridge these discussions? Certainly. It cuts 
short discussion, both by bringing parties to issue, and 
curing inconclusive reasoning. 

The discussions of physicians are numerous. Logic 
would reduce them, because it indirectly prevents logom- 
achy. It teaches us to scrutinize terms; to distinguish 
between the abstract and the concrete, the compatible 
and the opposite, the absolute and the relative, etc. It 
teaches us to distinguish between the whole essence, the 
partial essence, and that which is joined to the essence; 
between genus and differentia; between property and acci- 
dent. It gives us the rules of division and definition, 
teaching the difference between the nominal and the real 
definition, the accidental and the essential, the physical 
and the metaphysical. He who considers how much con- 
troversy arises from the ambiguous terms, and how much 
confusion from cross divisions, must see that logic would 



318 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

reduce the list of mooted medical questions. So, also, it 
would by the exposure of fallacies. Are not Thomsoni- 
anism, hydropathy, homeopathy, etc., examples of hasty 
induction ? Doubtless, steam, water, and sweetened' 
paste are valuable remedial agents, and, in many cases, 
each may be an adequate means of cure. We must be- 
ware, however, how we proceed from the particular to the 
universal. One of these systems may prove to be all 
that it assumes, but, certainly, when we consider, that in 
medicine, as in meteorology, a thousand circumstances 
unseen may vary the results of our experiments, and that, 
while successful cases are blazoned, unsuccessful ones are 
kept out of sight, that many reported cases are due to 
false statements, false perceptions, exaggerations, etc., we 
should beware how we assert that a suiSicient number of 
facts has been accumulated to establish any of them. 
Judging from the past, we may conjecture that the fate 
of the first of these systems awaits the rest, and all 
others of similar simplicity. 

The fallacy, called by logicians non causa pro causa, is 
common among physicians. You take a certain drug, 
and you get well. This is all you know about it, but you 
say the medicine cured you. You now assume what you 
should prove; namely, that the medicine and the cure 
stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect. 
It may be that nature, or regimen, or imagination may 
have wrought the cure. 

The word experience has led to many controversies. 
What I know by experience is certainly true. That this 
remedy will cure you I know by experience. Therefore, 
that this remedy will cure you is certainly true. The 
word experience, in the first of these premises, is used in 
the strict sense, and applies to the past. The same word, 
in the second premiss, is used in the popular sense, and 
applies to the future. It denotes, not experience, but a 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 319 

judgment founded on it. Nothing more reliable than ex- 
perience, in the first sense — nothing more uncertain than 
experience, in the last. Instead of being opposed to 
speculation, it is founded on it. A man takes for his 
major premiss a certain opinion, and for his minor a cer- 
tain phenomenon, and combining them, he draws a con- 
clusion of no more value than his premises. Hence, one 
man's experience is, that wet sheets curey another's, that 
they kill — one's, that infinitesimal doses are efficient, 
another's, that they are inert. One's experience is, that 
a wounded artery should be tied, another's, that the 
blood flowing from its mouth may be stopped by a charm. 
One's experience is, that jaundice may be cured by calo- 
mel, another's, that nothing more is necessary than to 
hang up a bottle of yellow liquid in the chimney. 

So with the phrase, common sense. As it is used in 
common parlance, nothing is more indefinite. Whatever 
stands to common sense, is to be relied on; but one 
man's common sense is very micommon, another's, not so 
much so, etc. The common sense of the savage teaches 
that the sun goes round the earth — the common sense of 
the sage, that the earth goes round the sun. The com- 
mon sense of European nobles says, that republics can 
not stand; but not so the common sense of American 
democrats. 

If such fallacies misled common people only, I should 
not notice them, but they often delude gifted, scientific, 
respectable men; sometimes even reputable members of 
the medical profession, who are thereby induced to for- 
sake its ranks, and enlist under the banners of some 
charlatan. It may be said that such instances of profes- 
sional desertion are owing, not to a want of that reason- 
ing ability which distinguishes truth from error, but of 
that honor which prefers poverty in uprightness to 
wealth acquired by dishonest artifice. I have too much 



320 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS 

confidence, however, in human nature, to accept this as a 
sufficient account of the matter. 

2. Another result of the want of logical skill, is the 
slow progress of medical science. Other professions make 
but slow advances, but they do not admit of such im- 
provement as medicine. Theology and law admit of no 
discovery — their great principles are settled. We can 
not correct the Bible, or amend the precepts of morality; 
but medical science may be progressive, especially in our 
own country, where we have peculiar facilities to trace the 
influence of race, climate, civilization, etc., in modifying 
the forms of disease, and to explore unknown regions, 
whose forests or whose mountains may contain remedies 
for diseases which have hitherto baffled the healing art. 

True, the history of medicine is full of discourage- 
ment; but it is consoling to reflect, that scarce any sys- 
tem has been devised which has not led to some new 
truth, or proposed some useful curative agents. The 
Dogmatics, the Galenics, the Empirics, the Methodics, 
the Stahlians, the Paracelsians, have appeared and disap- 
peared, but each of these sects has contributed some- 
thing to the stores of medical knowledge and the resour- 
ces of medical art. May it not be so, too, with the mod- 
ern systems ? — they are tributaries, soon to be lost in the 
general stream of medical truth, but not till they have 
contributed to swell its waters. 

If a medical student survey the mass of error, absurd- 
ity, and superstition which has been accumulated by the 
profession in the successive ages of the past, he may find 
himself growing skeptical as to his favorite science; but 
let him inquire, if there be not mingled with this mass 
materials of undoubted value, and he will find his faith 
revive — for he knows that the blood does circulate, that 
vaccination is, upon the whole, a prophylactic, etc. 

When we examine the statistics of hospitals, and the 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 321 

general records of mortality, we may be induced to sup- 
pose that there is about the same proportion of deaths 
and recoveries under every system of medical practice; 
but when we inquire, whetber there has been no improve- 
ment in the treatment of small-pox since the days of Sy- 
denham — whether quinine is not useful in ague, and 
iodine in scrofula, we must see that medical science has 
advanced. 

It is as true of every other kindred science as of medi- 
cine, that its progress is slow. Man is in haste, but God 
will have him "hasten slowly." Plato represents the 
human mind, in its progress to perfection, as the driver 
of a winged chariot; but the wings often droop, and pe- 
riodically molt; the horses are unequal — one fleet, obe- 
dient, and spirited; the other sluggish, clumsy, and 
mulish. But, notwithstanding the successive elevations 
and depressions of the chariot, as the wings lose or re- 
gain their feathers, and the struggles of the horses, some- 
times pulling opposite ways, and at best moving with 
unequal footsteps, the driver gradually ascends the skies. 
So with medical science. But the progress would be more 
rapid, if physicians of different views were to meet 
together, and, in the love of truth, compare notes, and 
mutually examine arguments, surrender errors, and ex- 
change truths. 

Lastly, I mention as a result of the want of logic, the 
skepticism of medical men in regard to religion. Al- 
though some of the brightest ornaments of the profes- 
sion, both east and west, are humble Christians, yet, that 
our physicians generally are inclined to unbelief, is very 
obvious. I could introduce testimony, if it were neces- 
sary. Dr. Logan, of New Orleans, in an address on the 
Ethics of Medicine, delivered in 1844, before the Med- 
ico-Chirurgical Society of Louisiana, says: "1 am espe- 
cially urged to this theme, at such a time and place, from 



322 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the lamentable fact that; notwithstanding there are many 
practitioners in our country eminent for talents, illustri- 
ous for learning, and distinguished for skill, yet I have 
reason to apprehend, too many are numbered among our 
ranks who, by their reckless disregard and defiance of 
morals and religion, are ruining our influence and bring- 
ing discredit upon the whole profession/^ Other testi- 
mony, to the same purport, might be introduced. Now, 
the cause of this state of things is not simple; it is 
owing, partli/, to the pride of science, the neglect of 
worship, and the absorbing nature of medical duties; but 
cJiieJiy, I think, to the want of logical habits. 

The medical student, as one remarks, is too often 
taught to bring his gift, like the Athenian, to an unknown 
God. And why so ? because medical authors are not 
wont to distinguish between causes and design. You 
survey a complicated machinery — you trace its move- 
ments from spindle to spindle, and wheel to wheel, till 
you find the first moving cause — a stream of water. But 
the question should arise, who made all these wheels, and 
spindles, and frames, and so arranged them as to make 
the unconscious water work out, with unerring certainty, 
the wonderful result ? The design is as apparent as the 
productj and the former as much implies intelligence, as 
the latter does momentum. 

The pupil often thinks he can account for every thing 
in the natural world, by natural laws; and in the animal 
world, by vital laws; and in the intellectual world, by psy- 
chological laws — but when he does so, he confounds two 
things entirely difi"erent; namely, power and law — law 
can do nothing; the term, as used in science, merely de- 
notes the mode in which poicer acts, or the order in 
which its efi'ects appear. In the cloud which is raised 
around the term law, the student often loses sight of 
God; he sometimes contrives to keep his soul out of 



LOGIC AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 323 

view by a similar delusion, a delusion wliicli some med- 
ical authors ingeniously promote. Bichat thus speaks of 
life: ''The functions of the animal form two distinct 
classes : one of these consists of an habitual succession 
of assimilation and concretion. By the other he per- 
ceives surrounding objects; reflects on his sensations; 
performs voluntary motions under their influence, and 
generally communicates, by the voice, his pleasures or his 
pains, his desires or his fears. The assembled functions 
of the latter class form the animal life." 

Now, ask the great physiologist, what is the cause of 
perception, reflection, volition? AVhy, animal life, to be 
sure. Very well. Now, what is animal life ? Why, it is 
perception, sensation, reflection, volition, speech, etc. If 
this is not the vicious circle, pray tell what is ? But it 
has been copied and imitated, by the highest medical au- 
thorities, not only in France, but on the other side of 
tbe British Channel, and on this side of the Atlantic 
Ocean. Having put God and the soul out of sight, what 
wonder if the physician should neglect the Bible and its 
evidences? 

Dr. Drake, than whom a higher authority can scarce be 
quoted, alluding to the sources of skepticism among phy- 
sicians, says : '' We are constrained to express the belief, 
that ignorance of the Bible is a greater cause of skepti- 
cism, than the whole of them." Again, speaking of the 
evidences of revelation, he holds this language: ''If a 
revelation be possible, and the conclusion seems inevita- 
ble, it could not become known unless it received atten- 
tion, were read, and the evidences of its reality examined. 
But this is precisely what the majority of our profession 
have not done. Their infidelity is most unphilosophical, 
because they have concluded without examination, in vio- 
lation of critical justice; for they have condemned with- 
out a hearing. If their disbelief should be correct in 



324 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the absolute, it is not logically correct, because not the 
result of careful and candid investigation. To such an 
investigation I would call them. As scholars and philos- 
ophers, they should be ashamed of its omission; ashamed 
that they have concluded before they have collected and 
compared the testimony, absolutely necessary to a correct 
decision; before they have subjected all the facts to the 
test of that logic on which they rely for the establish- 
ment of professional truth. When they have done this, 
should they not acquire a Christian faith, they will at 
least substitute a philosophical infidelity for the skepti- 
cism of ignorance. Into that cheerless region we should 
not have occasion to follow many of them, for its inhab- 
itants are few, indeed, compared with those who wander 
in the benighted land of ignorance and doubt. We 
have seldom met with a single physician, who had earned 
citizenship in that frozen zone; while the number of the 
latter, although reduced from what it once was, is still 
sufficient to show, that multitudes repudiate the Bible 
without having studied its doctrines, or the evidences of 
its heavenly origin.'^ 

Upon this eloquent passage we beg to inquire whether 
the reluctance to examine the evidence is not owing, in 
some measure, to the fact that the minds of physicians, 
confined almost exclusively to induction and analogy, are 
disinclined to moral reasoning. Do not imagine, because 
I have thus spoken, that I deem the medical profession 
particularly vulnerable ; others, perhaps, err as much by 
neglecting the inductive process, as physicians by neg- 
lecting the deductive. Think not, because I have allud- 
ed to the skeptical tendencies of medicine, that I seek to 
place a stigma upon it in the eyes of good men. It is a 
profession which, for genius, learning, and humanity; for 
industry, experiment, and persevering, self-denying, and 
perilous researches; for a patient submission to peevish- 



^ LOGIC AND MEDIC x\.L SCIENCE. 325 

ness, a generous sacrifice of pleasure, ease, and e^en de- 
votion to the calls of duty, and a manly forgiveness of 
the basest selfishness and ingratitude, is wholly unsur- 
passed. To Medicine I owe an unspeakable debt. 
Whenever I have eaten the bread of sorrow, or drank 
the cup of affliction, she has been my Good Samaritan ; 
she has calmed my anxieties, mitigated my pains, awak- 
ened my hopes, and often counted my pulse, and cooled 
my tongue at the midnight as well as the morning watch; 
and when, with tears, I have ofifered remuneration, she 
has gently replaced my slender purse beneath my pillow. 
To her skill — a skill which I ascribe to Divine Wisdom 
and mercy — I owe the prolongation of my life. The more 
I see her value, the more profoundly do I regret that 
powers so commanding, and generosity so noble, should 
so rarely be found in union with religious faith. 

Finally, young gentlemen, cultivate a love for your pro- 
fession — it is one which, from its indispensable import- 
ance, and from the extent and directness of its contact 
with the public mind, must contribute largely to mold 
the character of your country; study it, and strive to 
bring about that period when its name shall every-where 
be suggestive of a harmonious combination of the no- 
blest qualities of mind and heart. 



326 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



fints U i^wtlj* 

¥E hope that we have many young readers. For such 
we delight to write; because we may expect, without 
much vanity, to profit as well as to please them. Should 
grave wisdom direct its eye hither, we beseech it to turn 
over, while we endeavor to impart to youthful friends the 
benefit of our own experience and observation relative to 
certain small matters. 

Take care of the hodi/. It is a beautiful abode of the 
soul — all its apartments and furniture evince Divine wis- 
dom and goodness — it is a system of useful instruments, 
by which the spirit may acquire knowledge and strength, 
and achieve works of wisdom and beneficence — it is a 
medium of communication with nature and with man — 
it is called, in Scripture, the temple of the Holy Ghost, 
and, in its incorruptible, spiritual, and glorious form, is 
to be the eternal habitation of the redeemed, and sancti- 
fied, and glorified soul. As we value the comfort and 
usefulness of the spirit, we should prize the health of 
the body — as we honor God, and admire his works, let 
us be careful of that beautiful specimen of his handiwork 
which he has committed to our keeping. 

To secure the health of the body, it is necessary to 
exercise its members at least three hours a day. That 
employment or pastime is best which calls into exercise 
the greatest number of muscles. 

But exercise, to be useful, must be taken with a good 
will, and in a good humor. A vigorous circulation re- 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 327 

quires a cheerful heart, and an elastic footstep demands 
a buoyant spirit. Do not walk the street with a meas- 
ured pace and downcast look, like a soldier marking time 
to the ''Dead March. '^ Don't work your problems, nor 
mature your griefs, nor plan your enterprises in your 
rambles. But "over the hills and far away" — mount 
Bucephalus, and, ficing the morning sun, plunge into 
the forest, and brush the dew from the bushes — or, call- 
ing your favorite dog, in the mellowed light of evening, 
chase the fox, or tree the coon, or track the rabbit — or, 
climbing the mountain-^ide, look out from its misty 
brow — or sit by the cataract and commune with the dash- 
ing waters, and scattering spray, and dancing rainbows, 
and eternal murmurs — or chase the warbling rivulet, 
and gaze on the beauteous forms mirrored in its clear 
waters — or, if you please, look up cowslips on the mead- 
ows, or poppies in the rye, or tulips in the valley for 
your ''Ain kin' dearie, 0" — or, when in riper years, 
run races with the little ones in the orchard, or throuo-h 
the vineyards, or over the lawn. Let your spirit learn 
to be joyous in the fields of nature, and to catch the 
inspiration of its light, and freshness, and green. So 
shall you have a merry pulse, a joyous arm, and a lively 
footstep. 

Inactivity is the temporal ruin of the man. It brings 
disease, cuts short the days, impairs the mind, disturbs 
the temper, makes the subject and his companions miser- 
able, and peoples fancy's airy world with a thousand hide- 
ous forms. Men are not always mindful that by indo- 
lence they induce disease. No law of nature can be 
violated with impunity; but because sentence against 
lounging is not speedily executed, therefore the heart of 
the sons of men is set in them to be idle. Though the 
sentence, however, be delayed, it is sure to come. Jus- 
tice may hobble along with a lame foot; but he will over- 



328 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

take the sinner at last. You might as well hope to stop a 
race-horse on the brink of a precipice, as to avert disease 
if you fail to exercise the muscles. And when disease 
comes, no repentance or reformation shall seduce it from 
its work, though health be sought ^^ carefully with tears." 

Be as mindful, therefore, to take daily exercise as 
daily food. Do not say, "I have no time." To neglect 
the body is to lose time, by shortening your days. Do 
not say, " I will sacrifice my health to the improvement 
of my mind." You will find the mind rapidly fail under 
such a course. Whatever be#your mental occupation, 
whether it demand memory, or fancy, or thought, or 
feeling, you can do more in five mimites, with a body 
renovated in the fields, and a mind inspired with nature's 
fairest works, than in five hours, under the influence of a 
sluggish pulse. 

Would you be healthy, be careful in relation to your 
diet. As this is not a professional work, physiology 
would be out of place here. But suffer us to give a 
few plain directions, which we hope you will take upon 
trust when we assure you that they pass current with the 
doctors. 

Though the appetite is the index to nature's wants, it 
is not always a true index. In disease it must often be 
disregarded, and in health it must never be fully satiated. 
Rise from breakfast loith appetite, if you would not sit 
down to dinner ivithout it. Ours is a land of abundance, 
and its inhabitants have acquired habits of indulgence 
unknown in many parts of the old world. If persons are 
abstemious they will rarely suff'er from disease. The 
blood will course freely through the veins, the brain will 
sit at ease, and a feeling of comfort will spread over 
every organ and member. The intellect will feel at 
liberty, and bound with elastic step over the most diffi- 
cult steeps of science, or the most romantic fields of 



^ 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 329 

fancy. Ahstinence is often of service, especially after 
indulgence. Was it not Bonaparte who said, '^When 
my stomach gets out of humor, I withhold supplies till 
it cries for mercy?" Do not suppose that I would have 
you so abstemious as to induce feebleness. While the 
body would lose much, the soul would gain nothing from 
such a regimen. A vigorous intellect requires a healthy 
brain, and a cheerful brain demands a rich blood. If 
you eat to repletion, however, you sin, and must suffer. 
Under these circumstances, if you take proper exercise, 
your food may be digested; but the blood will be in- 
creased — its vessels enlarged — its circulation accelerated, 
and a state of plethora will be induced, which will render 
you liable to acute disease in various forms. But if you 
add indolence to gluttony, your digestive apparatus will 
fail under its accumulated labors, and dyspepsia, with all 
its crudities and acids, its melancholy apprehensions and 
sour spirits, will come upon you, rendering you a burden 
to yourselves and to others, and inducing your friends, 
perchance, to lock you up — in an editor's office. 

In reference to the qiiaUty of food it matters but little, 
if the quantity be properly regulated. The stomach is 
an excellent chemist, and can analyze and compound 
almost any thing, if you do not give him too much to 
do. There are many things, however, placed on the 
table, which ought never to be seen there — such as 
pastry and preserves. If I had unlimited authority, I 
would banish them all. "But what should we do for 
dessert when favored with company?" Why, how much 
better is a plate of figs, or a basket of apples, or a few 
bunches of lucious grapes, than pies, cakes, or puddings ? 
And as to liquids, cold water, milk and water, or lemon- 
ade, arc far preferable to all the decoctions of foreign 
herbs. The former invigorate, the latter debilitate. 

But I fancy a reader inquires, "Is the writer a Gra- 

28 



330 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

hamite?'' By no means. We believe nature intended 
that a man should have a mixed diet of animal and 
vegetable food. We think anatomy and physiology, as 
well as experience, teach this lesson. Nevertheless, we 
humbly conceive that many countries — among them our 
own — consume too much animal food. Perhaps, for 
sedentary persons, animal food once a day is sufficient. 

Be careful of your personal aj)pearance. I do not ask 
you to follow the fashions — to lay the neck bare one week, 
and cover it with curly locks the next — to comb the hair 
one way to-day and another way to-morrow; but I do ask 
you to have as much mercy upon your own head as you 
do upon your horse's; and while you direct the groom to 
use the curry-comb, see that the barber uses the comb. 
It has been said that cleanliness is next thing to godli- 
ness, and we have often wished that ablutions were a 
part of our religion. We hope to see the day when the 
bath-room shall be as common as the kitchen. We 
think we shall then have cleaner prose, clearer music, and 
sweeter poetry. The mind partakes in the comforts and 
distresses of the body. 0, for clear fountains and cool- 
ing streams ! Methinks they can almost put out the fire 
of passion, and spread good nature through the soul. 
Would you be in good humor with yourself, pay due 
respect to your wash-stand. In cleanliness is seen one 
of the great diflFerences between the pagan and the 
Christian. The sweetness of the sanctified spirit sheds 
its influences upon the person. 

Shall we be considered as descending if we allude to 
apparel ? We hate foppishness — aping great men. Be- 
cause a prince, afflicted with king's evil, conceals his 
neck in a high cravat, is that any reason why we should 
bind up ours? Because some afflicted queen endeavors, 
by the form of her dress, to hide a curvature of the 
spine, why should the fair of America imitate her? 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 331 

Extravagance in dress is as inucli to be condemned as 
foppishness. Let the ornaments of the man be a brill- 
iant mind, a holy heart, and a meek and quiet spirit. 
Let the decorations of the woman be, not "pearls, or 
gold, or costly array," but modesty, intelligence, and so- 
briety. A Grecian matron, when asked for her orna- 
ments, said, "The virtues of my husband are a sufficient 
ornament for me.'' Another, when challenged for her 
jewels, summoned her sons. It is proper, however, that 
our garments should comport with the habits of our 
country, and our pursuits and standing in society; and 
though comfortable, plain, and far from extravagant, they 
should evince a proper respect for ourselves and our 
fellow-men. We believe it is easier to go through the 
world in a good garment than in a ragged one; and as a 
man is responsible for all the influence he can acquire, 
he is bound to secure a decent apparel. " My banker," 
said one, "always makes a low bow to my neio coat, and 
a slight one to my old." It will be time enough when 
we have mastered the world to disregard its prejudices. 
We pity the wife who is not as careful to please her hus- 
band as she was, when a maid, to please her beau. 

Be mindful of your manners. True politeness is of 
great service. Its spring is good nature. One may, by 
reading books like Chesterfield's, and mingling in pol- 
ished society, acquire certain habits, and obtain certain 
rules, which will enable him to pass ofi" as a gentleman; 
but unless the milk of human kindness flows in his veins, 
and a just regard for his fellow-beings finds place in his 
heart, his politeness will be but disgusting hypocrisy. 
Vain is the attempt to deceive the world. It has too 
sharp an eye, and too thoughtful a brain. Every gesture 
and compliment is a matter of analysis, and through the 
most complicated processes of investigation is traced to 
its true motive. The great world, too, is a good physi- 



332 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ognomist, and knows liow to look through the window 
of the soul. To be polite is to please, but an attempt to 
please without the desire is worse than useless. 

The best maxims of politeness are found in the Scrip- 
tures. Such are these : '' Be kindly affectioned one to 
another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one an- 
other;" "Bear ye one another's burdens;" "Let no 
corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but 
that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may 
minister grace to the hearers;" "Wisdom is pure, peace- 
able, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and 
good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy;" 
" Charity vaunteth not itself, is not easily provoked, 
thinketh no evil," etc. Let that mind be in you which was 
in Christ Jesus, and you can not but be polite; for such 
a feeling will find expression in some form. Nature will 
be at no more loss to make it known than she is to give 
utterance to filial or maternal love ; and however un- 
graceful or even oiFensive to ears polite may be the mode 
selected, the heart will acknowledge the language of its 
fellow-heart. Let a man, however, be endued with this 
feeling, and he can readily — by thoughtfulness and an 
observance of good models of gentility — acquire a grace- 
ful mode of expression. "Consider one another;" that 
is, think of your fellows, of their joys, their sorrows, 
their hopes, their disappointments, their interests — think 
how you can allay their griefs, or promote their happi- 
ness — think of your friends, and of w^hat you would do 
and say under an exchange of circumstances. It may 
be that the kindest men may be deemed boorish, at 
times, for want of consideration. Would you learn gen- 
tility, observe those who have it. 

Be careful of your temper. A glad heart makes a 
sweet countenance, and a smiling face is like the sun in 
his beauty. Whatever may be the attraction of a lady's 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 333 

intellect, or person, or acquirements, she is repulsive, if 
she be of a gloomy disposition. Her best friends will 
be uneasy in her presence; and though some '^good 
Samaritan " may be willing to pour oil upon her wounded 
spirit, the priest and the Levite will instinctively pass 
by on the other side. We have generally sorrows enough 
of our own, without hearing one another's woes. Most 
of our troubles are imaginary. Never, therefore, nurse 
evil apprehensions, and you will never be melancholy. 
There is no philosophy like the philosophy of the Scrip- 
tures: ^'Take no thought for the morrow: sufficient unto 
the day is the evil thereof.'^ Were every one satisfied 
with her daily bread of affliction, there would be but 
little murmuring. Keep in good humor with the future — 
it has never done you harm — why complain of it? Bear 
kindly the afflicting dispensations of Providence. They 
are all arranged for your good ; and if cheerfully and 
piously endured, will be pleasing and profitable exercises 
for the heart or mind, or both. Providence, moreover, 
like the earth, is in perpetual revolution, and its darkest 
midnight is followed by the dawn. There is a heavenly 
alchemy which transmutes anguish into rapture. I would 
oppose to Pandora's Box, Paul's paradox — ''As sorrowful, 
yet always rejoicing. " David's heart caroled in its sad- 
ness, and the wildest and sweetest notes of his harp were 
touched by the hand that felt the Father's rod. Why 
should a living man complain? When stripped of every 
thing, bow down in humble and grateful adoration, and 
thank God that you have a body and a soul. And shall 
a saint repine? Would a pardoned culprit, trembling 
beneath the halter, complain because the government did 
not send a coach and four to convey him from the gal- 
lows ? and shall a sinner, raised from the mouth of hell, 
murmur because angel wings don't waft him gently to 
the throne of God? 



334 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

A melancholy mind imparts a gloomy tinge to every 
thing around it. Though nature, to the clear eye, is like 
to Eden, yet for the jaundiced one she has no charms. 
No hills are green — no dells are dewy — no paths are 
flowery — no steeps are breezy to moping grief. In Provi- 
dence there is a bright and a dark side to every picture. 
Endeavor to look constantly at the latter. He who 
searches for trouble is pretty sure to find it — he who 
courts enjoyment sees her not afar. 

Always keep in good humor Avith yourself. We would 
not have you blind to your sins, but know the worst of 
them, and repent and believe to the saving of the soul. 
But be satisfied with your capacities of mind and body. 
Kest assured they are the best for you — the very gifts 
which Infinite Wisdom sees that you can best improve. 
Be satisfied with your sphere. Sometimes you will meet 
with disappointments — bear them with grace. For in- 
stance, you intend to be a speaker — well, beware of mor- 
tification. You read, and study, and write, and in- 
tend to make a wonderful display — you expect now to 
raise a shout, and now a laugh, and now, perchance, 
you hope to see a lady faint; and anon you design 
to raise the audience to their feet; and you promise 
yourself that, as you leave the court-room, every eye 
will look toward you, and the young ladies will smile, 
and become envious of the favorite; and she, the be- 
loved of the orator, will be entranced, and murmurs 
of applause will roll in whispers on your ear, such 
as ^' great man," ''fine speech," "true eloquence." The 
day arrives — the audience assemble — all eyes are fixed — 
all ears are open — handkerchiefs rise up to catch the 
tears, and smelling-bottles push their corks half open. 
The speaker labors — alas ! his mind is rigid — his tongue 
is stiff — his figures flounder — his arguments tumble 
down. — the peroration is forgotten. The audience rise in 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 335 

confusion, and the speaker sits down in perspiration. 
And now the ladies smile at one another, the favorite 
hides her head, and the young rivals sneer, and the mali- 
cious breezes whisper, " Rather flat.^' 

Well, young man, hold up your head. Do not let the 
audience know that you have failed, and they will, per- 
haps, soon forget the failure, or even change their minds, 
and reproach their dullness for not perceiving your brill- 
iancy, and their shallowness for not appreciating your 
profundity. Suppose you have failed, and every body 
knows it. Do not be troubled — calm yourself with the 
consolation of the valorous Falstaff — ^^He that fights and 
runs away, may live to fight another day." 

Keep in a good humor with the world. Mankind are 
not all rascals, though an honest man wants bread. The 
world are not all fools, though a genius has no praise. 
Remember that Homer sung for bread, and Goldsmith 
wrote in a garret j and who are you? You may be great 
and wise — we do not dispute your claims — you may be a 
Cicero or a Webster — a Mrs. Sigourney or a Hannah 
More; but you must give the world a fair opportunity to 
understand your powers. Moreover, you may make the 
world as cross or good-natured as you please. If you 
treat it roughly, you will be treated roughly in return. 
Smile at it, and it will answer with a smile. He that 
would have friends, must show himself friendly. Do not 
look round for imperfections, saying, here is a rascal, and 
there is a fop, this is a fool and that is a bankrupt. It 
may all be true; but why say so? Cui bono? Look 
round for excellences. If you contend with the world 
you will find fearful odds against you. Speak evil of no 
man. When others speak evil of a man, do you speak 
good. No man so perfect as not to have some defects — 
none so frail as not to have some fine quality. 

And now my pen addresses itself particularly to the 



336 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

young gentlemen. Be in the good graces of the ladies. 
You have learned already that a mother's love, though 
cheap, is priceless — that a sister's affection is an impene- 
trable shield. I pity the youth who does not know 
the value of woman's influence. He can not succeed. 
Whether he be carpenter or mason, sovereign or shoe- 
black, priest or politician, he is a ruined man without the 
favor of the ladies. No pursuit so low, none so high, as 
to be beyond woman's reach. Needles and bayonets 
move at her command — turkeys and tyrants roast on her 
spit — coursers and candidates run at her will, and crowds 
and cradles hush at her lullaby. Her smile is prosper- 
ity — her indignation brings trouble. G-reat as is her in- 
fluence, it is no more than she deserves. The purest feel- 
ings of the heart receive their earliest and noblest devel- 
opments in her character. The mother's affection, the 
wife's devotion, the sister's love, who shall paint? In 
scenes of poverty and suffering she is an angel of mercy. 
At the altar of God her prayers are the warmest incense, 
her songs the sweetest praise. 

But how shall woman's influence be secured? The 
weak side of a mother's heart is her maternal love. You 
may easily procure a welcome to the family if you treat 
the children with kindness and attention. Notice the 
babe — its blue eye — its rosy cheek — calm its griefs, and 
enter into its tiny joys. And who would not? Are you 
the man, reader? Then there is no love nor music in 
your soul, and you do not deserve favor. What creature 
so beautiful as the infant man? Our Savior took little 
children in his arms and blessed them. 

Make the best of your country and location. The for- 
eigner generally brings down a world of prejudices upon 
himself by contrasting his native with his adopted coun- 
try. Comparing Washington with London, the While 
House with Windsor Castle, Trinity with St. Paul's, he 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 337 

disgusts all around him. Give him an apple, and he 
must speak of the superior orchards of Great Britain, or 
a peach, and he will boast of the size and flavor of those 
across the water. Present him a basket of cherries, and 
he praises the large, luscious English garden cherry, that 
grows by the wall. He meets with nothing to please 
him — as though wc had no earth or heaven, water or at- 
mosphere, thunder or lightning, worth a farthing. "Were 
he to turn his attention and conversation upon our advant- 
ages, upon the superiority of our forests and mountains, 
our seas and rivers, our soil and climate, he would receive 
a hearty welcome, and be a popular man. 

We have kno'wn a talented and pious clergyman to lose 
all influence with his people by harping on the evils and 
disadvantages of his location, while we have seen his in- 
ferior become a universal favorite by pointing out the 
beauties and excellences of the surrounding hills. 

Beware of bad habits. 

"Choose that which is most fit," said Pythagoras, 
"and custom will make it most convenient." There are 
many bad habits prevalent in our day of which we would 
have you beware. Gentlemen have a fashion of sitting 
which we know must give ladies much uneasiness, since 
it wears holes both in the carpet and the wall, and often 
divorces the seats of chairs from their backs. A worthy 
and witty friend propelled us to the borders of convul- 
sions once, at his hospitable table, when he described the 
predicament, on a particular occasion, of a certain indi- 
vidual, who, having perhaps read in Thomas Aquinas, 
that the human intelligence rocked itself on the center 
of two horizons, was in the habit of reminding himself 
of that sublime truth, by poising his body upon his chair. 
On a visit to President Jefi'erson, being somewhat embar- 
rassed, and not paying due respect to his antero-posterior 
motions, he was very painfully assured of the important 

QQ 



338 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

principle that bodies corresponding solely to time and 
space, liave both a liic and a nunc, so that if by gravita- 
tion or any other cause they are removed from one place 
they must go to another. We can think of no excuse for 
the habit to which we refer, unless the philosophy be 
correct which teaches that to attain to true wisdom a man 
must imitate the motion of the stars, so as to produce a 
giddiness which frees the mind from "sensible notions," 
and raises it to the region of illumination. In spite of 
Tophail, however, the ladies can cure this habit at once 
by having castors put under their chairs. 

There is a plant which was hailed, at its introduction 
into the world, in the middle of the fifteenth century, as 
one of the wonders of America, and which, through a 
strange coincidence, was first conveyed into the eternal 
city by a descendant of that illustrious man who first 
brought to Rome the wood of the true (?) cross. This 
plant appears to have a peculiar charm for three animals : 
a certain worm, a particular goat, and a creature in the 
image of God. It is used in various forms: some grind 
it to powder, and offer it to themselves as the heathen 
present incense to their idols — others curl it into little 
stems which they burn, as the converted pagan does his 
god ; while a third class roll it, like the sinner does his 
sins, as a sweet morsel under the tongue. We protest, ex 
cathedra, against its use in any form. 

The practice of using snuff- — not uncommon among the 
fair — injures the voice. We have known several distin- 
guished speakers deprived — in no small degree — of their 
charm by this habit. Nor is this the worst. Why did 
Pope Urban VIII publish a decree of excommunication 
against all who took snuff in the Church? Though we 
grant that this bull was rather severe, we believe, never- 
theless, that his Holiness was a very discerning man. 

The practice of smoMng causes a waste of time and 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 339 

money^ and subjects us to great inconvenience. A man 
will sometimes find company^ even at his own fireside, to 
whom the ashes and fumes of tobacco are far from agree- 
able. I speak not now of such as are peculiarly suscepti- 
ble, and liable to ''die of a rose in aromatic pain." Very 
few who have not been accustomed to breathe such in- 
cense as that of the pipe, can endure it long in a close 
room without discomfort. And what will you do, gentle 
reader, if you become the room-mate — at college or else- 
where — of one whose olfactories and lungs are delicate, 
or when shut up in a stage-coach or a cabin on a cold 
day, with nervous companions, to whom you are bound to 
show respect? Should you carry this habit into the itin- 
erant ministry, how often will it give you uneasiness ! 
You will not, surely, defile the prophets' chamber, or the 
holy altar. 

This practice oiFends against what has been called — 
next thing to godliness. We would not declaim against 
it as did King James I, who said it was ''a custom loath- 
some to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, 
dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fumes 
thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke 
of the pit that is bottomless;" but we may surely be al- 
lowed to say that it is not charming to the senses. We 
have seen ladies smoking — young ones, too. 0, tell it 
not in Christendom; publish it not in the streets of Cin- 
cinnati ! It was customary among the ancients for a lass 
to eat a quince on her bridal day, that her breath might 
be fragrant at the altar, and that the odor of her lips 
might suggest mellifluous discourse, and spiritual sweet- 
ness. What bridegroom would not prefer the odor of the 
quince and its purifying associations, to the fumes of the 
"herb of immortal fame," and dreams of bar-rooms and 
blackguards ? 

We know it is unpopular to write against a favorite 



340 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

custom; but then we do not, as did tlie legislature of 
Kussia in 1634, forbid your smoking, under pain of 
having your noses cut off, nor do we propose to issue a 
decree, as did Amurath IV, pronouncing it a capital of- 
fense. We write so gently that you can not be oflFended; 
indeed, when we see a man in the winter of life sitting 
by a lone fire, and musing over the flight of happy hours, 
we would not diminish the consolation which he draws, 
in his solitude, from his long white pipe tipped with red 
sealing wax; nor would we deprive the rude Indian of his 
emblem of peace, nor the slave of his socializer, nor the 
wandering Arab, or the hardy Esquimaux, of a luxury 
which sweetens his bitter hours; but we advise the 
young, and such especially as dwell within the precincts 
of civilized life, to seek for solace of a dififerent kind. 

We have not spoken of the other form of using tobac- 
co; but as that is so disgusting, we will presume none of 
our readers are addicted to it; nor need we tell the story 
of Mrs. S., who spread out her beautiful white satin 
apron before her guests, as they were defiling her new 
Brussels carpet, saying, "Use this, gentlemen; I can 
wash this, but not my carpet." Allow us, in conclusion, 
to say that tobacco, in any form, is ordinarily injurious to 
health. We do not, however, wish to deprive the steam 
doctors of it, nor speak disparagingly of its merits; it is 
a good emetic. 

We should not have touched upon this plant, but for 
the fear that its popularity is increasing, and that it has 
a great tendency to produce intemperance by causing a 
dryness of the fauces, for which a remedy is too often 
sought in the glass. 

Avoid the habit of speaking carelessly, using ungram- 
matical expressions, low phrases, unauthorized words, 
provincialisms, etc. This, you will say, is a very small 
matter; but if a neglect of such counsel should preclude 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 341 

your admission into more refined circles of society, it will 
prove to you a matter of some consequence. Wealth, 
station, influential connections, may do much toward se- 
curing respect; but vulgarity can counteract them all. 
Wit and intelligence, enchanting as they are, can not 
atone for those coarse expressions which denote ill-breed- 
ing and low conceptions. Many amiable ladies, whose 
connections are wealthy, of high official standing, and 
great political influence, wonder why it is they are not 
admitted to the circles to which they aspire. Not a few 
of this class could solve the perplexing problem which 
imbitters their existence, if they would pause over the 
hint just given. Pedantry and aff"ectation are as much 
to be avoided as vulgarity. A pretended delicacy of ex- 
pression is often a sign of real indelicacy of thought. 
Words are often corrupted by the channel through which 
they pass. To the pure all things are pure: ^^ Honi wit 
qui mal y penseJ' We question the refinement which 
calls Hog Island Swine Island, and dog the "domestic 
quadruped which guards the habitation." The language 
of Paris is that of attenuated refinement; yet it is the 
vehicle of the grossest moral pollution. Above all, shun 
every appearance of profanity. It is a sure sign of very 
bad breeding or a very bad heart. Was it not the prince 
of modern philosophers who took off his hat when he 
passed a church ? Is it not said of Boyle that when he 
pronounced the name of Deity he uncovered his head ? 
How often is the title of Jehovah — that name which 
rends mountains — the tower of the persecuted Chris- 
tian — the hope of the dying man — the name at which 
heaven bows, earth shakes, hell trembles — used with as 
little regard as that of a slave ! 

Violate not the first commandment : better kiss the 
cannon's mouth. How deep the depravity that can trifle 
with the name of the Creator ! For other sins an excuse 



342 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

may be pleaded ; for there is scarce any which does not 
confer or promise pleasure for a season. This sin can 
point to no part of our nature, and say to the inquiring 
Judge, ^^The passion which thou gavest me did tempt 
me, and I did eat.'' It is the development of sheer de- 
pravity, unless the transgressor can plead that he has 
come up from the very dregs of society, where there is 
no other dialect but that of hell. When at Washington 
City, I heard it said of one high in office, ^' He swears 
even in the presence of ladies." I trembled and I 
hoped. I saw that the nation was defying Heaven : I 
saw, also, that religion was not yet driven from her 
stronghold — woman's heart. To the honor of woman, 
let it be said, that to swear in her presence is the climax 
of impoliteness. 

Be careful of your character. No youth can succeed 
in the world without a good reputation. A man may 
have genius, and fancy, and wit — profound learning — a 
charming person — a sparkling conversation; and yet, 
devoid of integrity, who will give hiiu employment, or 
bid him welcome? We may admire him; but only as 
we do a beautiful and dangerous beast. The shepherd 
may smile at the tiger bounding through the forest, or 
reposing in his den ; but he would shudder to see him 
among the lambs of his flock. To obtain good character 
we must have good morals. I need not say there is no 
morality like that of the Scriptures. Keep the ten com- 
mandments — they are of infinitely more value than the 
morals of Seneca, the precepts of Socrates, or the Lives 
of Plutarch. They are radiant with heavenly light, and 
worthy of God. He who observes them occupies an 
elevated post in the moral world. He enjoys the appro- 
bation of his reason, his conscience, and his heart — he 
commends himself to sinner no less than saint — he is 
blessed of God. Earth rejoices before him, and joy 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 343 

unbidden dances in his heart. I know there appears to 
be no just hand in this life to distribute good and evil 
according to desert ; yet the observation of all men will 
justify the remark^ that integrity is indispensable to per- 
manent prosperity. Though the immoral man may suc- 
ceed for a time, he shall not prosper long. Reason will 
weaken him with her reproaches, conscience alarm him 
with her terrors, and the divine curse overtake his foot- 
steps. 

Would you understand the commandments, however, 
bring them to the Sermon on the Mount. In the light 
of this commentary, we see their beauty and divinity. 
They are not confined to the overt act; they require a 
sinless motive. Would you keep the commandments per- 
fectly, you must not have a heart from which proceed 
^^ evil thoughts, murders, adulteries," etc. I know there 
is an outside morality, which makes a man as a whited 
sepulcher; but trust it not; the stone may be rolled 
away, and the rottenness laid open to the light of heaven. 
Would you have perfect, and pure, and vital morality, you 
must have a purified heart. Make the fountain pure, and 
the stream will be pure. But where shall the heart be 
washed of its stains ? In the fountain of a Savior's blood. 
I have no faith in any morality that has not found out 
** Jesus Christ and him crucified.'' 

These general observations are sufficient for our pur- 
pose; but I can not refrain from some specific directions. 
Be observant of truth. Scarce any man falls into vice 
and crime who is willing, at all hours, to tell the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Falsehood 
is the gate of the road to ruin. If once a young man 
learns to lie, he is ready for almost any sin ; because he 
fancies he has found a method of concealment. Who 
steals, who counterfeits, before he has learned to falsify? 
Hence, Satan is called the father of lies. ^^AU liars are 



344 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

to have their portion in the lake that hurneth with brim- 
Btone." An intuitive perception of the guiit of falsehood 
makes the appellation ^^iar" exceedingly offensive. Make 
no distinction between white and black lies. Beware of 
allowing gesticulation, or manner, or countenance, to 
falsify. Remember that you may lie without speaking, 
that you may lie by exaggerating, or diminishing the 
truth; that you may lie even with the truth, by giving it 
a wrong arrangement. 

Be cautious how you make promises; make none which 
you do not intend to fulfill. I know that such directions 
are not suited to our times of reckless trading and wild 
speculation. I am aware, too, that such care and caution 
may be incompatible with rapid accumulation; but I 
know, also, that the steps of one who pursues such a 
course, though slow, are sure; and when he gains the 
summit, he does not find it crumble beneath him. How 
immense the advantages of a man who, having acquired a 
reputation for punctuality, passes his promises as silver! 
How easy for him to command capital or secure patron- 
age ! Many are not aware that the habit of falsifying 
steals on insidiously. We first lie for amusement, then 
for convenience, next to conceal guilt, or gratify malice, 
till, finally, we can bear false witness against our neigh- 
bor, without the least compunction. Beware, then, of 
the smallest beginnings of falsehood. Be guarded in 
speaking of motives or matters of opinion, remembering 
that he who asserts any thing as true, assumes the respon- 
sibility of ascertaining it to be so. 

Consider the dangerous consequences of falsehood. 
The fortune and character which had been acquired by 
a long life of usefulness, has often been blasted by a single 
falsehood. A soul has not unfrequently been hurled to 
ruin by one lie. Witness Ananias and Sapphira. Tell 
me not that lying is essential in your profession or trade. 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 345 

It is a libel on divine Providence. There is no lawful 
pursuit in which truth is not far more advantageous than 
falsehood. The obligations to speak the truth^ and the 
blessings which flow from it, do not depend upon the pur- 
suits of the speaker, or the rights of the hearer, but our 
relations to God. Truth is lovely in herself. Learn to 
venerate her as the leader of virtue^ the mother of science, 
and the attribute of God. 

With a view to facilitate an observance of truth, I sub- 
join a few cautions. Be slow in making promises. As 
much as lieth in jou, owe no man any thing but love. Be 
wary how you borrow or lend. The practice of promiscu- 
ous borrowing is a great fountain of falsehood and misfor- 
tune. I will not say that we ought never to lend. The 
great father of English poetry says, without qualification, 
'' Neither a lender nor borrower be;" and, perhaps, if a 
man were to consider his own interest only, this would 
be an unexceptionable precept; for, as the great dramatist 
says, "Use doth oft destroy both itself and friend." 

But we are not to look wlely to our own interest; and 
higher authority than Shakspeare informs us that it is our 
duty to lend to the poor. We are rarely, however, under 
obligation to borrow; suffer rather than do so. Better go 
barefoot and bleeding over the ground than run the risk 
of losing a friend, blunting conscience, and incurring 
self-degradation, by borrowing means to buy shoes. Don't 
tell me about the necessity of borrowing. Few men not 
possessed of considerable resources can do so without 
plunging into a whirlpool of engagements from which 
it is difficult to get out with a clear character and con- 
science. 

Be decided, not only in your opinions, but your course 
of action. Having chosen your path from a conviction 
of its rectitude, suffer nothing to divert you. Rather 
starve, or bleed, or burn, than act contrary to the convic- 



EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

tions of your judgment. The desire to please is an 
amiable trait in the character of youth, and is often con- 
founded with humility and modesty j but it is different 
from either, and has been the temporal and eternal ruin 
of thousands. 

Firmness is the helm of the mind. It can direct a 
feeble intellect across a stormy ocean. Without it, no 
force of thought, no depth of feeling, no resources of 
learning, no power of eloquence, no clearness of mental 
vision, is safe upon the voyage of life. Splendid abilities 
deprived of its guidance, are destined to be but a splendid 
wreck. It is an indispensable element in the character 
of the good man. To be virtuous in the midst of wicked- 
ness, is to be singular. He who follows the multitude in 
this world must do evil. The man who passes through 
the wide gate, and down the broad way, goes to destruc- 
tion. What would Daniel have been without firmness? 
One of the precepts of the Gospel is, " Be ye steadfast, 
immovable." The rock in the midst of the sea, which, 
in the stormiest as well as the calmest hour, lifts its ven- 
erable head above the billows, is the best emblem of the 
Christian. 

Firmness is not eccentricity. The former is founded 
in regard for one's own opinions; the latter in contempt 
for those of others. Firmness is singular in matters of 
importance; eccentricity is singular at all times. Who 
had more firmness than Paul; and yet who, in trivial 
matters, was more accommodating ? Though he every- 
where held up the cross, yet, on Mars' hill, he paid 
respect to philosophy; and, in Jerusalem, he honored 
Moses. In condescension to the Greek, he refrained from 
meat, and, to please the Jew, he circumcised Timothy. 
Steadily keeping salvation in view, he was "all things to 
all men." 

Firmness is not obstinacy. The former rests upon 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 347 

reason, tlie latter upon will. The former implies intelli- 
gence, the other stupidity. The one is a high excellency, 
the other a great defect. The one is illustrated in Luther 
standing before the Diet of Worms, the other in the mule 
standing under the lash uf his master. 

Be careful in relation to your company. Some of you 
may be about to leave the circle of your family, and the 
companions and guardians of your youth; but, as man 
was formed for society, you will soon find other associates. 
Beware: extend your confidence slowly; and, while you 
treat all with respect, be careful how you admit any to 
the endearing relation of friend. If you look over the 
history of the past, or the scenes of the present, you will 
see two classes of men : the one advancing to honor and 
happiness, the other plunging into infamy and ruin. And 
what accounts for the difi'erence ? The respective char- 
acter of their early companions. "Be not deceived — evil 
communications corrupt good manners." Avoid infidel 
associates. You have been born of pious parents, and 
reared under holy influences. The very gambols of your 
boyhood have been among the green pastures, and beside 
the still waters of the Shepherd of souls. You have seen, 
upon your native mountains, the beautiful feet of Him 
"that bringeth good tidings — that publisheth peace." 
You have heard, with infant ears, "the joyful sound" 
that makes the people blessed. You have breathed a 
moral atmosphere, purified with the dews of the Gospel. 
You have gone up to the temple to worship, and, with 
infant voices, have caroled Jehovah's praise. Perhaps, 
reader, you are a Peter called from his net to be a fisher 
of men ; and by your side is a David, invited from the 
mountains of Bethlehem to the throne of Israel ; and here 
is one on whom, while looking into heaven, the mantle of 
an Elijah hath fallen ; and there is the son of some 
Hannah, a child of vows and tears, dedicated to God in 



348 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

his temple, by her whose trembling heart said, '^So long 
as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord/' Here is that 
Samuel who, when the word of the Lord was precious, as 
he lay by the ark of God, said, " Speak, Lord, for thy 
servant heareth/' 

But you are about to leave the paths of youth and go 
down into the wilderness. Beware I I am not afraid that 
you will seek companions in the bar-rooms, and in the 
corners of the streets. You shudder at the blasphemies 
of those cruel scorners who can hurl down, with malig- 
nant pleasure, the poor souls whom they allure to the dark 
mountains of unbelief, and look with mad indifference 
upon the eternal ruin of the victims whom they betray to 
the hands of Satan. You will not listen, while the Bible, 
and the blood which speaketh mercy, and the temple, 
which lifts its vail from the counsels of the eternal Mind, 
are reviled. But you should remember that there is a 
refined infidelity. You will meet with young men of 
engaging manners, cultivated minds, and elegant attain- 
ments, whose thoughts and feelings are tinctured with 
skepticism. These men know how to insnare you. Prais- 
ing the poetry of Isaiah, the morality of the Gospel, and 
the character of Jesus, they will treat your religion with 
respect, and go to the house of God in your company. 
But, at the same time, they will give you to understand 
that they see excellences in the Koran and the Talmud, 
as well as the Bible; that they venerate the son of So- 
phroniscus as well as the Son of Mary, and that they 
have a similar regard for the Arabian kneeling at the 
tomb of the prophet, or the Brahmin pjostrate at the feet 
of his idol, that they entertain for you at the supper of 
the Lord. Descanting upon the prejudices of early edu- 
cation, and the power of custom, and sneering at enthusi- 
asm and superstition in all their forms, they will ingen- 
iously turn the contempt they arouse against these, her 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 349 

accidental concomitants^ upon the holy religion which 
they deform. While they raise a cloud before your eyes, 
which hides God from your view, they will steal into your 
doubting heart, robbing it of all faith in God's word, all 
hope in his mercy, all traces of his love; and leaving you 
in a world of wickedness and misery, without any support 
for your virtue, any consolation for your woe, or any hope 
in a better world ! Alas ! what may we expect will be 
your career? and in what manner will it close? Who 
shall help you on your dying pillow, when the terrors of 
the grave rise, and the curtains of despair fall, and the 
furies of remorse wake up, and hell opens its mouth for 
the lost soul ? 0, Jesus, may we never leave thy cross ! 
Shun the most splendid society if it be of infidel tend- 
ency. No accomplishment so elegant, no learning so 
profound, no honor so resplendent, as to compensate the 
child of God for the least seed of doubt that skepticism 
can plant in his heart. 

Avoid the company of the gay or dissolute. Far be it 
from me to recommend austerity or gloom. There is 
nothing in my philosophy or my feelings which would rob 
youth of one of its rational pleasures. There is useful 
mirth as well as salutary woe. And it becomes us all to 
sit down to life's feast with pleasure, and rise from it 
with gratitude. But let your pleasures be rationalj not 
sensual — the pleasures of man, not those of the brute. Let 
the feast be the feast of reason, and the wine the flow of 
soul. Immortal mind should need no material stimulant. 
As iron sharpeneth iron, so the face of man his friend. 

While mind struggles with mind, and heart bounds to 
heart — while thought leaps out to thought, and joy dances 
to joy — while mutual sympathy hightens mutual rapture — 
there are hights and depths of pleasure never known 
to the cockpit, the race-course, or the ball-room. 

Although the habits of the age are temperate, yet there 



350 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

are a thousand avenues to the drunkard's grave. On the 
steamboat and on the street, in the city and in the field; 
there are those who "lie in wait to destroy." Hundreds 
are ready to lead you to the card-table, and from the card- 
table to the wine-cup, and thence to the scenes of alluring 
vice, where pleasure decks her bowers, and spreads her 
bed of poppies, and, in the words of the poet, "weaves 
the winding-sheet of souls; and lays them in the urn of 
everlasting death." 

Be careful of your mind. Inform it. There is as 
clear evidence that the mind was made to learn as that 
the feet w^ere made to walk. All nature is hung with 
leaves of instruction, and a flood of light spreads over 
them to make their lessons luminous. The Bible is a 
book from heaven, ample in its evidence, sublime in its 
revelations, clear and copious in its instructions, pure in 
its precepts, rich and precious in its promises. Above 
all, there is a divine light which beams upon the humble 
soul. These three sources of knowledge are exhaustless 
and pure. Commune much, then, with nature, with rev- 
elation, and with God. Beware of other sources of knowl- 
edge. We fear both men and books. Granted, that ho7i/ 
men are good counselors, religious books helps to wis- 
dom. Try both by the divine oracles. If they speak 
not according to this, there is no light in them. Books 
of history, of geography, and of true science, are but 
transcripts of Providence and nature. Of these we need 
not be fearful; but works of human genius are to be sus- 
pected. The memory is an immortal canvas, and the 
forms traced upon it will probably be enduring as God. 
Beware whose brush you suffer to approach it. Thought 
may be buried, but the hour cometh when it shall have a 
resurrection, and be hung up in eternal light to the gaze 
of men and angels. Moreover, there is a Mind so pure 
that the heavens are not clean in his sight — so transcend- 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 351 

ent that he charges his angels with folly; and that mind 
searcheth hourly the heart. Let us beware whose ink- 
horn we let down into the bosom. 

Though an impure thought may give a moment's 
amusement, it may afterward cost unspeakable anguish. 
Who shall tell the torment of that spirit, when, in the 
hour of its painful trial, the infidel doubt which it re- 
ceived in the days of its wickedness, rises like a lost spirit 
from the pit, to haunt it through the darkness? Novelist, 
there cometh an hour when death shall seize. Then 
every stanza of Zion, and every verse of the Bible, will 
be an angel to thy soul. But, alas! the impure thoughts 
of Shakspeare, and Byron, and Butler, may be commis- 
sioned, like horrid specters, to drive you away from 
hopes of mercy, and promises of Grod, into the very ter- 
rors of hell. In that sad moment of despair, what would 
you give for a rod to drive away the ghosts of impurity 
and sin that hover round thy dying pillow? 

Consider. Let all you learn be subjected to examin- 
ation, fair and full. Bead, then meditate, understand, 
appropriate. Keep a sentinel at the door of the mind, 
charged to admit no stranger who does not give the coun- 
tersign. When any important fact comes into your 
presence, survey it carefully : inquire into its nature, its 
origin, its uses, and how to make it bear upon your ob- 
ject. He who perpetually reads, but never inquires, ie 
like a stranger in the midst of a mob — he knows not 
friend from foe, nor which way to flee to escape danger. 

In the economy of God, high achievement issues only 
from commanding mind; commanding intellect can only 
be brought forth by painful mental travail. Control the 
mind. Magnificent are its powers immortal; glorious 
the improvement, or terrible the havoc, which they must 
make in the universe ; high and luminous the elevation, 
or dark and profound the abyss which must follow its 



362 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

labors, according as they are well or ill-regulated. You 
can do mucli to acquire command of your powers, by long 
and laborious exertion. The reason can be trained to 
patient, powerful, consecutive thought — but not without 
a will, which to the soul is as the voice of God to the 
universe. To think, in this world of sights and sounds, 
and fragrance and sweets — of fancies and follies, cares 
and duties — is no easy task. Ulysses, as he passed the 
rock of the Siren, stuffed the ears of his companions with 
wax, and lashed his own body to the mast. He who 
would escape the rocks of folly, as he sails deep seas of 
thought, must learn to shut the gates of the senses, and 
bind his intellect with strong cords. The imagination 
is of incalculable value, but it needs to be under stern 
control. It is a beautiful world of dreams, in which the 
soul may advantageously luxuriate — dancing through its 
castles, communing with its heroes, imparadising itself 
in its bowers, and returning to the real world with the 
motion, the beauty, the fragrance, and the song of an 
angel fresh from the scenes of light. But we must be 
careful not to tarry too long in our visits to those enchant- 
ing regions — not to forget that we are visitors there, that 
our proper sphere is the world of matter — let us always 
maintain a proper command of the ivory gate, so that we 
may at once and always have free egress to the upper 
air. 

The passions are a vast deep; it is good this deep 
should oft be moved. Let the east wind, and the north, 
and the south, and the west, bursting from their caves, 
together meet upon its waters; let the waves rise and the 
sands be thrown up, and the spray sprinkle the stars, and 
heaven and earth be commingled; but take care that 
there shall always be a Neptune within the soul, to raise 
his calm head above the billows, and driving the strug- 
gling winds to their strong prisons, and calming the 



HINTS TO YOUTH. 353 

troubled waters, make a tranquil surface on wliicli to 
retreat to his ocean home. 

I tremble, reader, to think that you are plunged into 
the depths of the universe, with an immortal soul, re- 
sponsible to a holy and infinite God. Let constant 
prayer ascend, that the Holy Spirit may never '^eave 
you alone." 

Finally, save your soul. What gain can compensate 
for its loss ? Who, that reads his own heart in the light 
of God's law, does not feel guilty? There is mercy and 
there is wrath in Jehovah — to which of them shall the 
sinner be consigned? Jesus Christ is wisdom, righteous- 
ness, sanctification, and redemption. Up, dying sinner, 

to his cross ! 

30 



354 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 



THE dedication of your college to its purpose, is deemed 
an occasion worthy to be marked by appropriate cere- 
monies, and I am called on to bear a part in them. I re- 
spond to the call with no ordinary pleasure. Your beauti- 
ful and thriving village is associated in my memory with 
many pleasant recollections; your elevated location, your 
charming prospects, and your healthful breezes, have 
often suggested to me the idea of a literary institution. 
Your commercial enterprise, your political ambition, and 
your perseverance in carrying forward those public im- 
provements by which, though an inland town, you have 
secured all the advantages of two navigable streams, have 
begotten the conviction that such an institution would be 
safe and prosperous in your hands. 

The Church to which we belong has, from the earliest 
settlement of the place, found a home and a welcome 
among you, and your streets have become classic soil 
with her members, being consecrated to the labors of 
Christie and Bigelow, whom you have honored as apostles. 

The occasion suggests to me a special personal obliga- 
tion which I owe to Mansfield; for she has given me 
what no other village has — a faithful wife. It is not in- 
appropriate, therefore, that I should contribute my mite 
toward your entertainment while we consecrate this 
temple of science to the yoiing ladies of Mansfield. For, 
although it is open to all, and although we may hope that 

^-i* Delivered at the opening of Mansfield Female College. 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 855 

in the lapse of time it may educate the daughters of 
other villages, other counties, other states, yet for the 
benefit of Mansfield it must be chiefly employed. It will 
require some money to transport young ladies hither, and 
provide for them comfortably, to nurse them in sickness, 
and convey them home as occasion may require; so that, 
practically, these halls will be accessible to such distant 
patrons only as are somewhat favored by fortune. It is 
accessible to all your own daughters. The poorest man 
must feed and clothe his child, and it requires no more to 
do this while she is attending the college than while she 
is playing the tambourine in the streets. There is 
nothing between that daughter's footsteps and the 
highest forms of the college but the tuition fee, and if 
the institution sell cheap scholarships, that fee will be 
less even than the tuition of the district school. Your 
College, therefore, must raise the intellectual character 
of your female youth ; and, as the young gentlemen, by a 
sort of capillary attraction, will generally ascend as high 
as the young ladies, it must raise the whole platform of 
your society. This elevation will soon display itself in 
your buildings, your gardens, your employments, and your 
amusements. But the intellect and the taste are not all 
that will be cultivated here : the morals will receive due 
attention, and the religious emotions will be awakened 
and sustained. In this consideration all good men will 
especially rejoice; for better — infinitely better — that our 
daughters be ignorant drudges, dying piecemeal over 
the wash-tub, than Cleopatras, dazzling the palace with 
their beauty and wit, and cursing its Anthonys by their 
wickedness. And yet there may be men, and women too, 
in this community, who look with jealousy upon this insti- 
tution because it is religious. Some of them may dislike 
it because of their infidelity; others because of their big- 
otry. Let both consider that some religion is indispens- 



356 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

able to the institution; for without it, youth can neither 
be educated nor governed. An atheist can not be per- 
suaded to send his daughters to an atheistic, or even infi- 
del school; indeed, irreligious men are very careful how 
they speak on religious subjects to their own daughters. 
Whatever they may say to the daughters of others, few 
among them would not say to a beloved child, struggling 
in death, what that infidel, Colonel Allen, of Revolutionary 
memory, said to his daughter under such circumstances, 
when she asked him the question, ^^ Father, shall I 
adopt your faith, or the faith of my mother ?" " The faith 
of your mother, my child. '^ Seminaries of learning with- 
out religion, have 'been tried under the most favorable 
auspices^ and have proved failures. If you have religious 
instruction, you must have religious teachers. Indeed, 
it would be next to impossible to find persons not under 
the influence of strong religious principle, who possess 
the requisite talents, knowledge, and experience, and 
have the willingness to serve in professors' chairs for the 
poor remuneration which colleges can afi'ord. These per- 
sons must belong either to the same denomination or dif- 
ferent ones. If to difi"erent, one of two results will be 
likely to follow — either no strong moral or religious im- 
pressions will be made on the minds of the pupils, or 
there will sooner or later be either a change in the pol- 
icy, or a rent at the foundation of the institution; for, 
let any teacher be active and earnest in seeking the spir- 
itual welfare of his students, and he will naturally draw 
them with him to his own Church. He will thus awaken 
among his associates of different faith the suspicion of 
proselytism; then will come rumors, evil surmisings, back- 
bitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults, perverse disput- 
ings of men of corrupt minds — finally, explosions, dissolu- 
tion. The Church will share in the strife, and share, too, 
in the injury. This ought not so to be; but human nature, 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 357 

though sanctified, is still human nature. But, you say, 
take for instructors men of strong sense, deep piety, and 
catholic spirit. Very well ; perhaps if such stood alone, 
they might give definite religious knowledge to their 
pupils without suspecting or checking each other; but 
they can not stand alone — they must feel more or less the 
influence of their respective Churches, for they are ex- 
pected to represent them, and would be considered treach- 
erous if they did not. One cries, "All of the Bible that 
we need inculcate in the school, is moral precepts and 
cardinal doctrines, and in these all are agreed. Let, then, 
professors stand upon this broad platform, and there will 
be no difficulty.'^ But we must observe that it is not 
possible to disconnect the essential from the incidental, 
nor to dissociate the instruction from the instructor. 

"I could put up,'' cries one, "with a religious college, 
but not a sectarian one." Sectarianism I abhor as much 
as any man ; it is a brainless, heartless monster, begotten 
of ignorance and pride. I wish it were dead. There is no 
ground for it in the Scriptures. It is at war with both 
the law and the Gospel. If I were to preach against it, 
I would make the whole New Testament my text. It can 
not live in the presence of Jesus, whose spirit and con- 
duct, whose parables and prayers, whose law of love and 
death of agony, all speak, through and through, of uni- 
versal and impartial benevolence. But we must distin- 
guish between a sectarian and a merely denominational 
institution. The one is set up merely to promote the 
.interest of the sect, and it shuts out all who are not of 
that sect, or will not submit to the machinery judged 
necessary to make them so. The other is set up for the 
benefit of all who choose to avail themselves of it, and 
without requiring a conformity to any thing more than 
reasonable regulations for their education and govern- 
ment. It is instituted by a particular denomination as 



358 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

a matter of convenience. It demonstrates her willing- 
ness to do her share in the great work of Christian edu- 
cation, and provokes sister Churches to do likewise. In 
this way, the energies of the whole Church can be best 
brought out and applied, and her children can be com- 
mitted to their educators with the greatest confidence. 
The fact that a seminary is under the sanction and con- 
trol of a certain respectable ecclesiastical body, gives the 
assurance that it will be well managed and sustained, and 
thus attracts to it a patronage, and secures to it a perma- 
nence which no college controlledby a merely local corpora- 
tion, however excellent, could command. 

Instead of promoting sectarianism, it diminishes it, by 
securing unanimity, and harmony, and mutual confidence 
alike in the board of trustees and the board of instruct- 
ors. It precludes those theological discussions by which 
sectarianism is developed and made strong. It also dis- 
courages proselytism. This College needs the patronage 
of all denominations. It will seek the good-will of all; 
it will not, therefore, strive to awaken in the minds of the 
children that may be confided to its care, any prejudice 
against the religion of their parents. Its own interest 
will put it under bonds not to do so. Even when it 
becomes independent, it will still have a motive to catho- 
licity ; for, unless it possess a catholic spirit, its useful- 
ness must be limited within the narrow bounds of the 
Church to which it belongs. Indeed, our schools and 
colleges are the great centers of catholic feeling. The 
more our acquaintance extends the less our prejudices 
become; in proportion as our minds are enlightened, our 
hearts enlarged, and our obligations to others increased, 
we learn to respect their opinions. How would an enraged 
polemic feel as he arose to ply his artillery of wit, and 
satire, and raillery against the Church of his antagonist, 
if an aged instructor who belonged to that Church should 



PEMALE EDUCATION. 359 

come in and remind him that he owes his very capacity 
to point with skill and grace his enginery of indignation 
and ridicule to the beneficence of that very Church 
against which he directs it, and his introduction within 
his own to the prayers and admonitions of one of the 
faithful watchmen whose walls he would fain demolish ! 
Moreover, more can be done with the same means when 
Churches operate separately, than when they combine. 
Compare those managed by the state with those controlled 
by the Church — Harvard with Yale, Oxford with Oberlin, 
etc. As to the moral influence, it is incomparably 
greater under the latter than under the former regimen. 
I can name a state institution in the west that had in its 
faculty, among others, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, and 
an infidel. At every opportunity the infidel adroitly man- 
aged to get the Calvinist and the Arminian engaged on 
the question of predestination, and then he sat still, in 
raptures, bestirring himself only to goad on the antag- 
onists whenever the battle relaxed. What was going on 
from week to week among the students, may well be con- 
jectured. 

And this reminds me of a class who may object to this 
College because it is not religious enough. They are 
accustomed to stigmatize the college curriculum as a 
pagan one. True, we shall find among the text-books 
works of pagan authors — they are the elect, however, 
chosen with reference to their moral sentiments no less 
than their intellectual treasures and linguistic purity, 
such as Cicero, Xenophon, Virgil, Homer, Herodotus, 
Horace, Tacitus, jEsculus, Euripides, and Plato; and such 
portions only of these are taken as are least exceptionable 
to a Christian mind, such as orations, histories, and 
poems — bearing upon common topics, providential deal- 
ings, natural objects, etc. — and only such an amount 
of these as is necessary to give a correct knowledge 



360 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

of those languages in whicli the Grospel was written, and 
the commentaries of the early Christian fathers cast. 
Moreover, most of our text-books have all necessary expur- 
gations and caveats. Next we find the mathematics, pure 
and mixed. We can no more set these down as pagan 
than as Christian ; for, although pagans may have taught 
them, they taught them not as pagans, but as rational 
beings. Christians teach them, too — Gralileo, Kepler, 
Newton, yea, more, God; for as Plato well said, God 
geometrizes — by mathematics he sets the tabernacle for 
the sun, and stretches his line above the heavens. This, 
perhaps, you think does not bear directly upon devotional 
feeling, but it does upon both Christian character and 
Christian usefulness, by preparing the mind to adore and 
serve the Creator. And here let it be observed, that 
the great object of education is not to impart knowledge, 
but to develop, train, strengthen mind. Though we may 
never engage in civil or militaryengineering, we may find it 
well to trace the works of the Almighty; and, moreover, 
we shall never find amiss, either in the Church militant 
or triumphant, those habits of close attention, of philo- 
sophical association, of long and patient intellectual labor, 
which mathematical studies cultivate. Next come the 
natural sciences. Are these pagan? Are they not Chris- 
tian too? studies in the divine museum; meditations in 
God's great gallery of arts; symphonies in his living temple! 
But look again at the scheme of studies: you find the 
laws of reasoning — logic — the laws of style — rhetoric — 
the history of the world, the geography of the earth, the 
philosophy of the human mind, the map of human opin- 
ions, the literature of all ages, the evidences of the Chris- 
tian faith, the science of morals, the analogy of religion — 
above all, the Gospel of our Lord and the epistles of his 
apostles in the original tongues, which run all through 
the course. 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 361 

If among tlie text-books I find such commanding 
works as Paley's Theology, Wajland's Moral Science, 
Gleig's History of the Bible, Paley's Evidences, Philosophy 
of Salvation, and Instar Omnium — Butler's Analogy, and 
if I learn that they are thoroughly taught, while the New 
Testament is reverentially and critically and prayerfully 
studied, and the whole Bible, from morning to morning, 
read in course, with a running commentary, and enforced by 
argument and exhortation from Sabbath to Sabbath, and 
by a pure example from day to day upon the pupils, and 
that the whole apparatus of instruction reposes upon pil- 
lars of prayer, I can not see how such pupils can be oth- 
erwise than Christians, theoretically and practically, and 
retain their own self-respect. 

Do not suppose that I think man can be educated into 
Christianity without the grace of God — but that persons 
thus educated will be likely to seek the grace of God — 
that seeking they will find it, and finding it they will 
become enlightened, settled, active, discreet Christians. 
God has signally owned such instruction by granting 
numerous and extensive revivals of religion in colleges, 
and particularly in these latter days, and also by selecting 
the fruits of these revivals, both to spread the savor of 
his name in distant nations, and to occupy the chief 
places of influence in the Church at home. 

But this is a female college : there are men among us 
who, although they can see the propriety of colleges for 
young men, see no necessity for such institutions for the 
other sex. "What,'' say they, "do ladies want of 
Latin ? they are not to be lawyers or doctors. What do 
they want of Greek? they do not preach. What do they 
want of mathematics ? they are not going to survey 
lands or command steamships. Such persons should be 
reminded that women have minds; that minds should be 
educated; that mathematics and languages are not the 

31 



362 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ends but the means of education — the instruments for 
training the intellect to strong thought, and the tongue 
to clear, and copious, and graceful utterance. We hear 
much of woman's rights. I plead for them to-day. I 
claim that in the college they shall be equal to those of 
men, because her capacities are equal. Physically she 
is inferior. There are structural diiFerences which mark 
the predestined superiority of man in mere bodily 
strength; he has a broader chest, a more powerful pair 
of lungs, a larger, firmer, muscular system. It is not 
mere fashion which gives the severer duty to the right 
arm ; it is better supplied with blood than the left ; so 
it is not mere accident that, as a general rule, both in 
savage and civilized life, assigns the ruder and more 
laborious duties to man. It is an ordinance of nature 
that man, not woman, shall wield the ax, scale the hights, 
and measure the depths, sail the seas, and lay new 
foundations. But is woman intellectualli/ equal to man ? 
Women have ranked side by side with men of proudest 
name. Sappho, "violet-crowned, pure, sweetly-smiling 
Sappho," for grace and elegance, for genius and culti- 
vation, had no superior in her age; she was regarded by 
her countrymen as a supernal being, and dignified with 
the title of the "tenth muse.'' Even Solon, on hearing 
one of her poems, said that he could not die till he had 
learned it by heart. Corinna, of Thebes, in five suc- 
cessive contests bore the palm from Pindar. But time 
would fail to tell of the Marys, and Catharines, and 
Elizabeths, and Lady Greys, and Lady Lumleys, and 
countesses, and duchesses, and madames, and misses who 
wrote Latin and Greek, and spoke Italian, and French, 
and Spanish, and rivaled poets, and excelled statesmen, 
and uttered oracles, and mastered mathematics, and 
studied theology, and received doctorates, and subdued 
kingdoms, and swayed scepters, and alarmed warriors, 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 363 

and routed armies. Such cases, unless they are excep- 
tions to a general rule, show that woman is intellectually 
the peer of man. They are indeed striking instances; 
but let the advantages enjoyed by Elizabeth Carter or 
Madame Dacier be possessed by all, and examples of 
female greatness equally illustrious would become fre- 
quent. Still it may be said that the world has produced 
no woman to stand up side by side with Bacon or Newton 
in philosophy; with Aristotle or Locke in logic; with 
Homer, or Shakspeare, or Milton in poetry ; with Han- 
nibal, or Caesar, or Napoleon in arms. To this it may be 
replied, woman has had a poor opportunity thus to dis- 
tinguish herself. But how came she to have so poor 
a chance, if she be the equal of man? why not, in the 
course of ages, assert and prove her equality, and make 
her lord her equal at least, if not her subject? We 
answer, though woman's intellect is equal to man's in 
power, it is different in kind — in memory, perception, 
imagination, woman is not inferior to man; in abstraction 
and ratiocination perhaps she is. Though she surpasses 
man in some mental efforts, she can not match him in 
mere analytical power or sublime conception. Her best 
productions, like Cleopatra's needle, are of fine material, 
graceful form, beautiful proportions, and full of meaning. 
Man's noblest works are like the pyramids of Egypt, 
amazing by their breadth and solidity. 

However this may be, she is certainly superior to man 
in sensibility; her emotions are more intense, and her 
affections more lively and persistent. Only a woman, 
when her sons were slain, could have kept her bed of 
sackcloth on the rocks from the beginning of harvest 
till water dropped upon the corpses out of heaven, that 
she might prevent the birds of the air from resting on 
them by day and beasts of the field by night. None but 
a mother could day by day carry her dead child through 



364 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

tlie frozen woods, and night after night suspend his 
cradle of bark upon the branches beneath which she 
slept, and no where fix upon a spot in which to bury 
him. 

Woman is superior to man in taste; her songs are 
more sweet and tender; her epistles more bright and 
sparkling; her delineations of character more accurate, 
and her descriptions of nature more perfect. Her mind, 
like an unruffled sea, reflects the forms and hues of all 
things around and above it. 

Chiefly does her moral sensibility evince superior deli- 
cacy; her views of right are generally more vivid and 
her moral impulses more powerful. Pity, gentleness, 
and compassion are among her marked characteristics. 
The stranger who is driven from the abode of the savage 
by man, may hope to find mercy from woman. It is 
woman that, in her pity, can administer relief to the 
bleeding or dying invader of her country at the risk and 
even at the cost of life — and who, at the couch of sufi"er- 
ing or of death, like unto a wife, a sister, or a mother? 

These difi"erences between the sexes are wisely ordered. 
As Tennyson prettily expresses it, 

" For woman is not undevelop'd man, 
But diverse : could we make her as the man, 
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this — 
Not like to like, but like in difference : 
Yet in the long years liker must they grow — 
The mail be more of woman, she of man ; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral hight, 
Nor loose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care : 
More as the double-natured poet, each ; 
Till at the last she set herself to man 
Like perfect music unto noble words ; 
And so these twain, upon the skirts of time, 
Sit side by side, full summed in all their powers, 
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To be, 
Still reverent and reverencing each. 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 365 

Distinct in individualities, 

But like each other, ev'n as those who love : 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men ; 

Then reign the world's great bi-idals, chaste and calm ; 

Then springs the crowning race of human kind." 

But sball we say tliat woman is tlie inferior? It is 
fabled that among the heavenly hierarchy the seraphim — 
angels of love — rank higher than the cherubim — angels 
of light. Surely woman is worthy of an education as 
good, both in kind and degree, as man's. This may be 
proved as well from her functions as her nature. 

She is the companion of man. Man, oppressed by 
cares, perplexed by responsibilities, fatigued with busi- 
ness, needs at the evening fireside the relief of agreeable 
conversation; there is no opiate so soothing, no tonic so 
invigorating. But this relief he can not find unless his 
wife be as intelligent as himself; she must be able to 
understand his words and allusions, to be interested with 
his studies, to be pleased with his amusements, to appre- 
ciate his reflections, and respond to his appeals; to ex- 
change with him thoughts, sentiments, images, joys. 
If there be an intellectual chasm between them, woe to 
both ! they may understand each other's obligations and 
struggle to fulfill them; but all in vain; the wife will 
prefer the companionship of menials to that of her hus- 
band, and will generally make an excuse to be in the 
kitchen or the nursery when he is in the parlor; or, if 
she endure his presence, will leave him to his reflections 
and relapse into her own — now and then relieving the si- 
lence by a smile that renders her vacancy visible. Under 
such circumstances, what wonder if the husband, especially 
if he be not under strong moral restraint, should seek 
company at the cofi'ee-house, the theater, the assembly, 
or the billiard-saloon ; and, instead of pursuing a safe 
voyage over the ocean of life, should drown his bark in 



366 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

the lake of intemperancej and wreck his fortunes forever ! 
This is the secret history of most of the children of 
genius. The women are not to blame ; society is to 
blame for not educating them upon the same platform 
with men. Marriage under such circumstances is but 
half marriage — it is a mere civil bond; whereas it should 
be also a spiritual one, one that death can hardly sever, 
that heaven may reunite, and that eternity may mature. 
Hard indeed is it, under the most favorable auspices, to 
struggle up to the high places of the earth; doubly hard, 
scarcely possible, when a man's wife does not appreciate his 
merits, second his efforts, and encourage his heart. You 
may tell me that there are but few intellectual men, and 
that such as are. may educate their wives to suit them- 
selves. Alas! let no man try the experiment; it is 
possible for a man to educate himself — he has command 
of his time. After his toil is over he can retire with 
his book; if he be a carpenter, he can read by the light 
of his shavings; if a merchant, by the glimmer of his 
lamp ; if a poet, by the light of the moon. The soldier 
may study in his barrack; the shoemaker, over his lap- 
stone; the sailor, in his hammock. But when or where 
is poor woman to study? The kitchen, the laundry, the 
dining-room, the chamber, the nursery, and the parlor 
divide her time, and make their indispensable calls with 
the regularity of the sun; and when these calls are met, 
where is the leisure hour? There is no silence which 
the cry of the infant for the fountain of the breast or 
the cry of the sick-bed for the refreshing draught may 
not disturb; there is no light which tiny hands about 
the mother's neck may not dash out or obscure, no book 
that they may not tear. Talk not of mathematics or met- 
aphysics to her, it is too late — the father may rush from 
the annoyance of his children, and almost forget the prat- 
tle and the cries of the cradle, but the mother may not. 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 367 

Woman is often by necessity the representative of 
man. It is implied in the contract of marriage, that if 
either party is incapacitated to fulfill assumed obligation, 
the other is bound to supply, as far as possible, the place 
of the failing partner. If the wife be bedridden, 
the husband must see that the household shall not 
suffer; if the husband grow blind, or deaf, or de- 
mented, it is the duty of the wife to see that his business 
be not neglected, but that his family shall receive sup- 
port ; or, if he be laid in the grave, that his estate shall 
be well managed. If the wife be well educated, she will 
find but little difficulty under such circumstances; she 
will have lived with her husband on such terms of in- 
timacy and confidence that she will know the arts of his 
business, the state of his accounts, the nature of his 
contracts, and the extent of his plans, and will be able to 
bring his affairs to a successful termination, or prosecute 
his business with energy and skill. How often it happens 
that a man of great enterprise and wealth leaves at death 
an estate which, when closed, proves bankrupt, because 
an incompetent, uninterested party becomes his executor ! 
We say, as we look on, if the deceased had lived to 
close up his own business, he might have been a million- 
aire. Few men have the ability to settle an extensive 
and complicated estate, fewer still have the time, and 
fewer still can feel the necessary interest in it. But an 
intelligent wife, who for life was the familiar friend of 
the great operator, who had comprehended his plans, 
breathed his spirit, and become conversant with his 
agencies, and who feels that her fortune and that of her 
children depends upon her success, would be able to 
close the business to her own aggrandizement and the 
advantage of community. I am not among those who 
would place woman side by side with man in the field 
and the forest, the store and the market. Nature, in the 



368 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

sports of even unguided children, points out character- 
istic differences of occupation — the boy mounts his 
charger, and shoulders his gun, and builds his little 
city, and goes abroad to the banks of the stream, and 
comes home, perchance, with a bloody nose; the girl 
lays a doll in her lap, and sings her lullaby, and spreads 
her little table with broken china, and soothes the angry 
passions, and dresses the bleeding wound of her brother. 
As she grows up nature assigns to her duties, and cares, 
and modes of suifering which are peculiar and untransfera- 
ble; and the character of these duties and afflictions and 
anxieties forbids that she should ordinarily labor side by 
side with man in the sterner duties and the more exposed 
theaters of life. But we would not have her cripple her 
lungs or lose the rose from her cheek; rather would we 
have her develop all her power of muscle, and, above all, 
her power of mind, and be ready, when Providence creates 
an emergency, to step into her absent husband's footsteps 
even when high energy, and power, and reasoning are 
demanded. Nature anticipates such an emergency; for in 
woman, weak, timid, retiring, there seems te be an un- 
suspected reserve of strength which an exigency can 
call forth. In hours of extremity she has a more protean 
spirit, a more plastic temperament, a more subtile elo- 
quence, and a greater power of adaj)ting her operations 
to any required scale than man. She has, too, tem- 
porarily, a greater capacity of cd durance, both physical 
and moral, an intenser passion, and in all her energies a 
more violent power of reaction. It was a mother who 
said to her son, when she handed him his shield, ^' Bring 
that back or be brought back upon it." It was a mother 
who, in the days of the Maccabees, exhorted her children 
one by one to martyrdom. It was Joan of Arc who 
rushed like a fury into battle, and the Amazons who 
moved through the foes with the fierceness and power of 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 369 

the wtirlwind. Put a family in the wilderness, and let 
the savages assail them; the mother may scream and per- 
haps faint, as the father shoulders his rifle to defend his 
cahin; but let that father be slain and scalped, and there 
will be another defender. She has ceased to scream, she 
has recovered her pulse, she has put off the woman, and 
now she seizes the nearest weapon, and, standing before 
her cradle, she battles with a coolness, a courage, and a 
fierceness, to which man is a stranger. 

Under all ordinary circumstances, we are disgusted to 
see woman exhibit a masculine spirit, or usurp masculine 
duties, but when necessity demands them of her, they sit 
gracefully upon her. Woman playing the jockey on a 
race-course is unlovely, but woman gracefully flying over 
the plain on her well-reined charger, to catch the last 
words of a dying mother, or to save an imperiled child, 
or inform the frontier camp of the landing of the foe, 
is sublime. A maiden in the judge's bench, making 
speeches to a laughing crowd, is contemptible; a widow 
at the bar, supplying her counsel with facts by which he 
may rescue her property from fraud and her children 
from poverty, is honorable. 

Another function of woman renders her education nec- 
essary — she is the educator of man. The school, the 
academy, the college, and the conflicts of life may do 
much to form the character of a man, but the mother 
more. She lays her plastic hand upon him when his fac- 
ulties are all impressible. A babe might make an oak 
grow gnarled and twisted if he seized it as it burst from 
the ground, but a giant could not, after a few decades had 
matured its trunk. Show me a great man that has not 
hung upon the breast of a sensible mother. Show me an 
illustrious mother whose son is not worthy of her. It is 
scarce possible for a boy with ordinary endowments to be 
reared by a sensible and educated woman without being 



370 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

great. She may be driven by misfortune to the wilder- 
ness, but even in woods and widowhood she will train up a 
philosopher. As soon as her son begins to walk the earth, 
she will begin to give him some idea of its magnitude, 
its mountains and streams, its continents and islands, its 
lakes and oceans, so that the globe is never presented to 
his mind without form and void, for the spirit of his 
mother moves upon the face of the waters. As the wind 
howls through the trees at night, she may calm his mind 
by explaining to him the nature of the air he breathes, 
the causes of its currents, the gases which enter into its 
composition, the sources of its impurities, its uses in res- 
piration, and in keeping, by its pressure, the blood with- 
in the veins. So that, from the first, the spirit of philos 
ophy shall shut out the idol superstition from the temple 
of his brain. On some beautiful morning she may begin 
to teach him the laws of light; she resumes them at 
noon, when the rainbow, spanning the heavens, illustrates 
her lesson of refraction, and closes them when the setting 
sun demonstrates for her, in the western sky, the laws 
of reflection ; so that the evening and the morning are a 
day of instruction for her boy. She takes him abroad at 
night, and as the moon comes forth with her train of 
stars, she goes out with her son beneath her mantle, and 
lays the rod of modern astronomy upon the azure vault, 
and measures from planet to planet as his expanding 
mind takes in the demonstration; and when she has 
given him some idea of our system and our sun, she 
raises his mind to the fixed stars, each the center of a 
system, and up the milky way she walks, hand in hand 
with her child, to the distant nebulse, where the molding 
hand of God is shaping some new creation, and seizing 
the harp of David, she sings some such strain as this : 
"Whither shall I go from thy presence, or whither shall 
I flee from thy spirit?" But it is not only in the glo- 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 371 

rious scenes of nature tliat she points out truth — even in 
the humblest duties she is a teacher. As she rakes the 
embers from the hearth, she explains the nature of fire 
and the laws of heat. As she fills her bucket, she ex- 
plains the principles of the pump, and the laws both of 
hydrostatics and hydraulics ; as she swings her kettle upon 
the crane, she treats of the compound nature of water, 
and explains how the sun draws up the mist and forms 
the rain drops ; how the dew distills upon the grass, and 
the snow flakes crystallize as they fall. As the neighbor's 
house is building, she points out the simple mechanical 
powers, and their combination in machines, and illus- 
trates how force is increased and regulated by them. 
Her son brings in, some spring morning, a bunch of flow- 
ers from the woods, and his mother, to reward his kind- 
ness, analyzes and names them for him, and shows how 
all vegetable productions are arranged into classes, 
orders, and genera, so that they constitute a great volume, 
in which these different classes are beautiful leaves; and 
she thus entices him to search again, sure that the 
meanest mushroom has a lesson in it. He brings, on 
some winter morning, a curious stone, and forthwith his 
mother gives it a name, and then determines its proper- 
ties, composition, and relations in a system of mineral- 
ogy, and a new volume is opened beneath his feet, and 
the very stones cry out to him to seek knowledge. A 
strange bird attracts his notice, and he bears it in his 
bosom to the bosom of his mother; she names it, as 
though it were a familiar friend, and speaks of its family; 
and now he learns that the fowls of heaven too are made 
upon a plan, and they warble more sweetly, and shine 
more beautifully in the branches to his excited senses and 
eager mind. He finds the skeleton, it may be, of a rab- 
bit; but it affords the mother an opportunity to point out 
ribs, and spine, and cranium, and limbs, and from these 



372 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

she may proceed to speak of the golden bowl, and the 
silver cord, and the pitcher at the fountain, and the 
wheel at the cistern, till he shall cry out, " I am fearfully 
and wonderfully made." As the railroad penetrates the 
wilderness, she explains to him the expansive nature of 
steam, the mode by which it is regulated, the parts and 
movements of the engine, whether stationary or locomo- 
tive, and the use to which it is applied, both in commerce 
and manufactures. And now the telegraph follows, but 
the heaven-appointed teacher is at no loss to explain its 
mysteries to her loving pupil; for she has taught in a lec- 
ture on the lightning what is electricity, and what is 
magnetism, and electro-magnetism, and how it may be 
generated and made the messenger of men. Perhaps 
her leisure moments are spent in drawing diagrams, and 
making models to reward the obedience of him whom she 
has brought into this life, to train up for another, and 
whose chamber, it may be, is decorated with geological 
maps, and celestial charts, through which he muses, in 
his waking hours, upon the epochs of the past, and the 
revolutions of the future. In due time she teaches him 
the laws of that language which he speaks, and analyzes 
that graceful style, and that accurate method of reason- 
ing which he has caught from her beautiful lips; nor 
does she neglect to teach him the properties of numbers, 
the relations of quantities, and the resolution of forces. 
She leads him, as his mind matures, to patient retrospec- 
tion, and points out the faculties and laws of that most 
delicate and wonderful mind which allies him to the 
angels, and which should be led into eternity in the 
image of Grod. Her winter evenings, I fancy, she de- 
votes to history, till she renders her pupil familiar with 
the nations of the past, with the progress of empires, 
the progress of arts, the progress of discovery, and the 
progress of virtue. As she exhibits before him the 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 373 

"heroes and orators of antiquity, she awakens, in order to 
gratify, his thirst for the languages in which they spoke, 
and specially for the languages of the prophets and pa- 
triarchs, martyrs and apostles. But from first to last she 
dwells upon the Bible, and morning and evening she 
takes her charge to her closet, and breathes upon him her 
prayer, and teaches him to lift his hands on high. Who 
would not have such a mother ? What son that has, can 
fail to grow up to giant manhood ? 

The mother not only teaches the child when it is most 
impressible, but when the impressions made are the 
most indelible. The image of the mother goes into the 
very structure of the soul of the child, like that image 
of himself which Phidias cut so deeply into the buckle 
of his Minerva, that no one could obliterate it without 
breaking into fragments the statue itself. 

The mother does more for her son than simply to im- 
part knowledge. The mother of Miriam would have 
nourished up a Moses, even if her lips had been sealed to 
the Hebrew law, by breathing upon him her Hebrew 
spirit. It is a beautiful fable of ancient mythology, that 
when Ceres left the society of the gods, and came down 
among men, she came to Elusis disguised as an aged 
woman, and was employed by the wife of Celeus as a 
nurse to her infant son. Beneath the care of the god- 
dess the child 'Hhrove like a god.'' He ate no food, but 
Ceres breathed on him as he lay in her bosom, and 
anointed him with ambrosia, and every night hid him 
beneath unknown fires. She was making him immortal. 
So, methinks, a great mother is like one from God. She 
breathes on her child celestial breath, anoints him with 
heavenly odors, and lays him on the burning bed of her 
own great spirit, till he grows immortal. 

Woman is the great reformer of men. Without her, 
man soon roughens into a barbarian, and hardens into a 



374 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

criminal. I grant slie is herself capable of barbarism 
and crime ; and if once sbe falls, she sinks deeper than 
man; there is a wildness in her sin, and a fearfulness in 
the ruin which she works, that makes ordinary criminals 
stand aghast. The opening of her hand in iniquity is as 
the opening of Pandora's box. And this shows her 
power. Exom the days of Eve, our worst evils have come 
through woman's instrumentality; so with errors in sci- 
ence, in religion, in politics. When an empiric plants 
himself in a village, upon whose credulity does he first 
practice? Without securing the confidence of some good 
matrons, his case were hopeless. It is woman whose 
sympathies are first excited by the cry of distress, whose 
feet first find access to the chamber of woe, whose serv- 
ices are first ofi'ered at the couch of affliction; who, in her 
kindness, inquires into the symptoms of the sufferer, and, 
in her ingenuity, infuses doubts concerning the treat- 
ment, and prepares the way for the new mode of practice. 
However intelligent a husband be, he can hardly bear up 
against the entreaties of a wife weeping over a sick child. 
After reasoning and remonstrating, he is likely to say, as 
he rushes to his business, "Well, do as you please.'' 
Thus the charlatan is called to the children, and he who 
prescribes for them will, sooner or later, prescribe for the 
parents. So, too, with errors in religion. When Mor- 
monism sent its prophets of wind through the land, their 
chief captives were silly women. Where the mother 
clave to the faith of her fathers, the family was safe ; 
even though the husband might falter and wander, he 
generally, in the end, returned to his home and his 
senses; but when the mother yielded, the family was lost. 
Thus, too, all forms of superstition find their refuge in 
the interior of the house. Nor is it less so in politics. 
Where woman's voice is for despotism, despotism is; 
when it is for anarchy, anarchy is; when it is for slavery, 



FEMALE EDUCATION. 375 

the chains are riveted. In the French Revolution, for 
example, anarchy and despotism alternated as the Mad- 
ame Rolands or the Charlotte Cordays were upper- 
most. So with vice. x\ngels may lecture on temperance 
in vain, if beautiful women hold out the tempting glass ; 
divines preach to little purpose, while ladies smile at blas- 
phemy; Sinai's thunders go forth into the empty air, 
while women of the upper walks caress the villain and 
the libertine; despite a prophet's prayers and words of 
fire, if women sneer at the Gospel, and trample the Sab- 
bath under foot, the wolf of hell is in the streets, and 
the moral leopard becomes the city watch. Now, to the 
chief source of our danger we must look for our remedy. 
Woman, educated and virtuous, is the great social light. 
She dissipates error, and superstition, and enthusiasm, 
and quackery, and fanaticism, as the sun does the morn- 
ing mist. When she stirs the fires of liberty, the chains 
of the tyrant melt. It was her animating voice all 
through our Revolution that kept the banner of Inde- 
pendence afloat. It is her whisper in the Sabbath school, 
to the rising generation, that makes us look to the future 
without alarm. It is her missionary breathings upon the 
hearts of the young that give vividness to the prophetic 
visions of the millennium. 

Though woman was the instrument of our fall, she was 
also the medium of our redemption. Such is her power, 
such the necessity for educating her. Let others train 
the Washingtons and the Columbuses, if it can be yours 
to train the Marthas, without whom the Washingtons 
could not evince their virtues, and the Isabellas, without 
whom the new worlds could not be discovered. 



376 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS 



ORIGrlNALITYj in the sense of creation, belongs to 
God only. As there is no particle of matter of which 
he is not the creator, so there is no idea of which he is 
not the author. Men may change the forms, and alter 
the combinations, and vary the relations of matter; so 
they may modify, and decompose, and combine, and per- 
vert the ideas which the Almighty furnishes, but they 
have no power to make an atom or an idea. Whether or 
not we admit the theory that all ideas reach the mind 
through the senses, this declaration will be obvious. 

Originality does not imply the avoiding of all ideas 
which have been employed by others. We may use the 
ideas of others and yet be original. 

1. By presenting them in new combinations. If we all 
go to the same great source of ideas — the universe — it is 
not unreasonable to suppose that several shall be attracted 
by the same fields, and view them in the same aspects. 
But as optics, and tastes, and intellects, like limbs and 
countenances, differ, so that, to microscopic vision, no 
two can be found precisely alike, and as nature herself 
is subject to incessant mutation, perhaps it is impossible 
that two minds, acting independently, shall bind up the 
same ideas in the same combinations. Nevertheless, 
there may be great similarity in the productions of differ- 
ent intellects, while each is entitled to the merit of orig- 
inality. Important discoveries have been made simulta- 
neously, by different persons, without correspondence or 



ORIGINALITY. 377 

collusion. Truths, buried to the world for ages, have been 
revived by nearly the same process of ratiocination as 
that which led to their first discovery. Ideas selected 
and combined by a mind acting independently, constitute 
an original production, and will, in all cases, evince a 
peculiar taste and talent. 

2. By giving them new applications. When the phy- 
sician makes a medicinal use of some plants which were 
gathered for ornament, he is as much entitled to praise 
as if he himself had collected them in the wilderness. 
Suppose that, before the arts and sciences had made 
much progress, three men had experimented over a 
caldron of boiling water, heated for culinary purposes, and 
one had applied steam to the cure of disease, another to 
the formation of oxygen and hydrogen gases, and the 
third to the propulsion of machinery — each would have 
been an original discoverer. When a writer makes a 
new application of the ideas previously expressed by 
another, he is original. We may, therefore, employ com- 
hinations of ideas prepared to our hand, and yet be enti- 
tled to the merit of originality. 

8. By decomposing and recombining them so as to 
alter their properties. Suppose a chemist take a com- 
pound, and, by the mere use of reagents, call into action 
a new play of affinities, and thus alter the nature of the 
article, and ii-.crease its medicinal virtue : is he not en 
titled to name it and employ it as his own? Nor would 
he be deprived of this honor, or advantage, even if it 
could be shown that the first combination required time, 
and labor, and expense, while the charge was the result 
of a moment's exertion. It is hoped that many combina- 
tions of ideas, which are now poisonous, may be rendered 
salutary by some genius who may discover how to give a 
new play to their tendencies. 

4 By transforming or abridging. Virgil has, in many 

32 



378 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS 

parts of the ^Eneicl and Georgics, imitated Homer, but 
he has, in many respects, so improved upon his master 
that we can scarce regard him as a copyist. The natural 
theology of Mr. Paley is based upon ^^ Howe's Living 
Temple." Scarce an illustration is to be found in the 
former which is not contained in the latter; yet the more 
modern writer has wrought out the illustrations of his 
predecessor in such a masterly manner, has given to them 
so much force and beauty — from the recent discoveries 
of science — and has adapted the whole work to the com- 
mon reader with such felicity, that no one calls in ques- 
tion his title to originality. When an individual, by the 
incorporation of his own industry with matter previously 
prepared, immeasurably enhances its value, he is original. 
When a writer makes a new and more valuable work upon 
the basis of an older one, he is not to be regarded as a 
plagiarist. 

5. By simplifying. If a man were to make a vast im- 
provement in a machine, merely by rendering it more 
simple, more cheap, more portable, he would nevertheless 
be entitled to praise and a patent. It requires the high- 
est kind of genius and of art to simplify. The untutored 
savage multiplies causes to multiply effects. As man 
emerges from ignorance, he approaches his Creator, whose 
great secret is a simplicity of causes, reconciled with a 
multiplicity of effects. The greatest praise of a machine, 
a work, or a science, provided it answers the purpose, is its 
simplicity. That is evidently a meritorious kind of orig- 
inality which can seize upon the valuable ideas of an 
author, and present them in all their power, divested of 
all incumbrances, and in a much smaller compass. 

If such be the ample range within which a man may 
be original, there can be no excuse for plagiarism; no 
excuse for using the matter of another, verbatim, or for 
linking sentiment after sentiment, doctrine after doctrine, 



ORIGINALITY. 379 

argument after argument, illustration upon illustration, in 
the same order, and for the same purpose as another has 
done — though the language may be different — while the 
boundless universe is before us; no excuse for stealing a 
paragraph here, another there, and then calling the com- 
bination an original composition. It is an original con- 
glomeration, or juxtaposition; for there is no combina- 
tion among such incompatible elements. I pity the mind 
that can employ itself in such a task, and pity the con- 
science which can not inflict a woeful pang for such an 
offence. My design, however, is not to declaim against 
plagiarism, but to recommend originality. I proceed, 
therefore, to notice some of the advantages of original 
effort. 

1. It exerts a favorable influence upon the judgment. 
This is the most important function of the mind. The 
imagination may revel among splendid ideas, connected 
by no fixed laws, but it can arrive at no useful result. 
The memory may link facts, irrespective of their relations, 
but it is incompetent to discover truth. It is the prov- 
ince of judgment alone to compare facts, to trace rela- 
tions, to deduce conclusions. Extensive learning, an im- 
agination lofty as the heavens, a memory capacious as the 
ocean, would be rather injurious than advantageous, 
unless controlled and employed by a sound judgment. It 
was a remark of Demosthenes, in reference to fools, that 
success above desert is an occasion of misthinking, 
and good fortune above desert an occasion of misdoing. 

A man of sound judgment will accomplish much in 
whatever sphere he is placed, and will know how to use 
every advantage he gains. If you look into history, or 
mark the progress of events in Church or state, you will 
perceive that the men who make the most display are not 
those who control great results. Queen Elizabeth, of 
England, exhibited extraordinary sagacity in the choice 



380 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

of her public men. She had a cabinet equal^ if not supe- 
rior, to any that England has ever boasted; but she put 
no showy men into it. She kept working men for work, 
and showy men for show. On every stage there are men 
of judgment behind the screen, who use the men of noise 
and show as the engineer regulates and employs his 
machinery. They of the latter class may propel the 
wheels, but they do so only at the pleasure of the former. 
In no situation will a man of sound judgment be at a loss 
for servants. Like a great orb projected among inferior 
ones, he attracts to himself, by a noiseless yet efficient 
energy, a system of satellites which wheel around him in 
ceaseless homage and obedience. An impudent enemy 
once asked an ancient general — Iphicrates — by way of 
taunt, what he was ; for he had neither spear, nor bow, 
nor light armor. "I am," said he, 'Uhe man who com- 
mands all these." Thus, with that crowning capacity of 
the mind — judgment — though without learning, or brill- 
iancy, or a store of facts, it will command them all. How 
important, then, to develop and train the judgment ! This 
can be done only by the habit of original investigation. 
Such a habit will tend to improve it. 

(1.) By producing accuracy. It is an easy thing to rea- 
son by rule, but this will not always lead to correct con- 
clusions. A strict attention to each premiss is indispens- 
able. The arithmetician may do his sum by the right 
rule, but the result will be inaccurate, unless he shall 
take notice, in turn, of each separate figure. Fallacies 
are, however, more frequently to be traced to imperfect 
investigation than to illogical reasoning. They lie not 
in the argument but in the premises. Most men reason 
well. One has remarked that the difference between 
the fool and the madman is this : the former reasons in- 
correctly from true premises, the latter reasons correctly 
from false premises. The errors of men are generally of 



ORIGINALITY*. 381 

the latter kind. They fail in the examination of the 
premises. Hence the necessity for patient investigation. 
This begets the tendency to inquire into every thing^ 
define every tcrm^ understand every fact — its bearings, 
relations, and tendencies. Sir Isaac Newton reasoned 
like an angel in philosophy, and like a child in politics 
or religion. Wby this difference? His mind was as 
strong when applied to one object as to another; but in 
physics he had made himself master of premises — in other 
sciences he had not. 

Logic is of no consequence to a man who has not 
accurately attended to every part of the subject which 
he examines. If a man has not studied French, he 
will not be enabled to read it merely by putting on 
spectacles. 

(2.) By begetting habits of nice discrimination and 
rigid analysis. The unpracticed surgeon may perform 
coarse operations; but when he undertakes to cut in the 
midst of important arteries and nerves, where the varia- 
tion of a hair's breadth would occasion death, he trembles 
and desists. So the coarse mind may be suitable for 
coarse operations; but when the utmost nicety is indis- 
pensable, and when life or death, peace or war, salvation 
or damnation is suspended on the movement of the judg- 
ment, it grows blind and faint. Dr. M'C, noted through- 
out the Union for the celerity, and accuracy, and neatness 
of his operations, once informed me that his skill had 
been acquired by striking at minute points, and that he 
had spent hours in doing nothing else. The mind 
trained to independent investigation, which has learned 
to fix its attention, train its powers, concentrate its 
energy, move all its faculties in concert, may trust its 
powers of discrimination when other minds grow giddy, 
and cut with calmness and firmness when splitting 
hairs. In the professions of law, politics, medicine, and 



882 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

divinity, this delicacy of judgment can hardly be too 
highly prized. 

(3.) By producing confidence. The mind rests in its 
conclusions when conscious of having thoroughly exam- 
ined each step of its progress in arriving at them, as the 
student is confident of the correctness of his translation 
when he has examined each definition, parsed each word, 
and comprehended the grammatical relations of each part 
and particle. Such a man is not easily shaken. He is 
firm as the rock. His firmness is not, however, that of 
the mountains, which can not move, nor of the mule, that 
has no understanding — it is the firmness of a mind con- 
scious that it is right. Such a mind will court investiga- 
tion, hail truth under whatever name it may come, cheer- 
fully yield to conviction, but, unless convinced that it is 
wrong, stand forever in its position. A man of this de- 
scription relies not so much on his talents, or ingenuity, 
or eloquence, but on the truth. He fears no opposition, 
but, like a garrison in a castle that is impregnable, defies 
assault. 

2. Originality exerts a favorable influence upon the 
memory. The memory of facts depends much upon the 
attention with which they are viewed. The habit of orig- 
inal investigation fixes attention. 

3. Originality exerts a favorable influence upon imag- 
ination. It restrains, regulates, refines the fancy; but it 
curbs it not. Instead of permitting it to run wild and 
lawless through the regions of space, it directs it to the 
noblest and most useful purposes. 

4. Originality exerts a favorable influence upon mental 
habits. 

(1.) It begets a habit of observation. If a man rely 
upon books or discourse for his ideas, he may pass 
through every scene of business or pleasure, without ob- 
serving any thing with a careful eye — neither counte- 



ORIGINALITY. 383 

nances, nor sentiments, nor opinions — neither men, nor 
things, nor events — neither the amiable nor the lovely, 
the beautiful nor the grand awaken the reflection of his 
idle soul. He is like the heir to a fortune, who avails 
himself of no opportunity of profit, because he relies upon 
the accumulations of others. It is quite otherwise with 
the original inquirer. He sees a little world in every 
leaf, and sources of boundless contemplation in every 
star. Scarce a look, or action, or word escapes his notice; 
no event so trivial as not to excite useful reflection, or 
furnish a felicitous illustration. His mind is in a state 
of continual activity, so that it is pleased to find some- 
thing on which it may exert itself; and, in the exuber- 
ance of its thoughts, it finds every thing with which it 
meets serviceable as a channel of communication. It was 
a remark of one of the ancients, that he was never less 
alone than when alone. Such were his habits of medita- 
tion, that in silence and in darkness, in dungeon or in 
desert, he found himself in a beautiful and busy world, 
over which his own active mind had spread life, and 
activity, and beauty; and every little pebble, and breeze, 
and bird, and flower seemed to crowd around him as 
children around a parent, anxious to listen to his dis- 
course, to court his favor, to enjoy his smiles, and render 
him willing homage and obedience. An eminent writer 
of our own country and times was distinguished in early 
life for a habit of this kind. When riding alone he has 
often been observed to dismount from his horse, draw 
from his pocket a commonplace book, and note down, for 
future use, some brilliant thought which had suggested 
itself to him in his solitary musings. Such a man will 
almost electrify an audience by a happy use of some 
trivial circumstance which scarce any one else would have 
noticed. 

(2.) It begets a habit of philosophical association. 



384 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

Nature will not permit our ideas to be separated and inde- 
pendent. She takes care to link them together, but she 
connects them in a confused manner. We may direct 
her in her operations if we choose, and thus make her 
services in this respect of the utmost value. Instead of 
having our ideas all lying loose in a box, like the papers 
of the careless merchant — notes and receipts, letters 
answered and unanswered, whether on business, or friend- 
ship, or religion, or politics — all thrown together into 
one huge pile, we may partition our memory into pigeon- 
holes, classify them philosophically, label them neatly, 
and lay them where they may be safe, and where they 
may be found at any time after a moment's search. Of 
what inestimable advantage this will prove, every one 
must at once perceive. The practice of original investi- 
gation will secure such an association of ideas by render- 
ing it habitual and absolutely necessary. All ideas being 
in demand for practical use, are examined as they arrive, 
and assorted and j51ed. 

This orderly arrangement of ideas will be transferred 
to the business of its possessor. It will divide his time, 
systematize his pleasures, devotions, and pursuits, and 
exert a beneficial influence over his person, his habita- 
tion, and all his paths. It will, almost of itself, insure 
peace, and comfort, and success in this world of folly and 
derangement. 

5. Originality exerts a favorable influence upon elo- 
quence. 

(1.) It confers clearness of expression. This is in- 
dispensable to eloquence. We may have bombast, and 
noise, and argument, and declamation, without perspi- 
cuity, but not eloquence. The language may be copi- 
ous and beautiful, the voice harmonious, the subject 
interesting, the arguments, and illustrations, and appeals 
numerous and elaborate; figures on figures may be piled 



ORIGINALITY. 385 

up to a pyramid, but after all the speaker or writer will 
fall far short of eloquence, unless he express himself 
with clearness. He may excite the admiration of the 
ignorant, and the stare of the gaping idiot, but he will 
receive only the pity or contempt of the intelligent, 
judicious hearer. Clearness is generally associated with 
originality. A man can scarcely be original, and at the 
same time obscure. The subject may be such as to 
require language and arguments which are not familiar 
to all, but yet it may be treated so as to be perfectly 
plain to those for whom it is discussed. Whatever 
views a man compasses by his own exertions, will strike 
him with more or less force, and whatever he conceives 
strongly he will express clearly. We sometimes com- 
plain, that although we understand a subject thoroughly, 
we are unable to explain it. This doctrine enters more 
frequently into my apologies than into my philosophy; 
for it transfers the disgrace of failure from the man's 
mind to the nation^s language, and leaves the impression 
upon the hearer that the speaker's soul contains depths 
unfathomable. That mind must indeed be great for 
whose lofty conceptions the flexible and copious English 
language, enriched by unnumbered accessions from an- 
cient Greece and Rome, and from nearly all the living 
languages of the civilized earth, can not provide appro- 
priate expressions. It must be far above that of John- 
son or Addison, of Milton or Shakspeare. It is a wonder 
that the great minds of former ages did not discover 
this difficulty. It is strange that we, who could make 
ourselves understood, when we were babes, can not now 
that we are men. But, irony aside, the English lan- 
guage is transparent enough to show the treasures be- 
neath it, however deep they lie, when it flows through a 
good channel. It is only when it passes over a muddy 

bed that it becomes turbid, and reveals no riches below. 

33 



386 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

I can point to men, distinguished in the political world, 
who are authors of able state papers, written not only 
with power, but accuracy and beauty, and who are per- 
fectly ignorant of the first principles of grammar. They 
are men of original minds, and they understand what 
they write so clearly that they express themselves with- 
out any confusion. The author of a grammar, in giving 
directions to avoid blunders, gives the following as 
worth a thousand rules; namely, ''think well before you 
speak." 

(2.) It secures an appropriate theme. Much depends 
on the choice of a subject. The period, the age, the 
education, the habits, the prejudices, and the state of 
feeling of the audience must all be taken into consid- 
eration. What may be proper at home may be unsuita- 
ble abroad. That which is adapted to the town may be 
uaeless in the country. An address which would delight 
youth, might offend old age. Arguments, language, illus- 
trations, which would enchain one auditory, might be 
deemed pedantic by another. The Boanerges may throw 
his thunderbolts around him with salutary effect, when the 
moral atmosphere is in a peculiar state ; whereas, under 
other circumstances, his power had better be restrained. 
The storm that refreshes the northern field, might tear to 
pieces the tender petals accustomed to drink naught but 
the oriental dews. There is in some communities a pe- 
culiar proneness to resist certain truths — a kind of moral 
idiosyncrasy. In such cases the wise physician of 
souls will dissolve that pill in sweetened water, which, in 
a solid state, might be instantly rejected. The effect of 
a discourse depends much upon the state of feeling of 
the hearers. When the mind is in a musing, melancholy 
mood, '' Hail Columbia," however skillfully played, will 
grate harshly upon the ear, and almost agonize the soul; 
whereas, ''Roslin Castle," by a much less expert musi- 



ORIGINALITY. 387 

ciau, will be to the ear charming as the harp of Orpheus, 
and will spread over the soul as oil upon the troubled 
waters. 

That man who is always presenting the same doctrines 
and precepts in the same way, may have excellent matter, 
and may occasionally do some good, when his auditory 
happens to be adapted to his text ; but his course is as 
unscientific as was that of Dr. Sangrado, who prescribed 
blood-letting and warm water for every patient. The 
former character would be very useful, if God's provi- 
dences adapted congregations to subjects; and such a 
one as the latter would be uniformly successful, if the 
Almighty fitted patients to prescriptions. How awkward 
is that warrior who never takes off his armor, but goes 
to the forum and the fireside as he does to the field ! 
There is a pretty illustration of this remark in the Iliad. 
Hector, going forth to battle, meets Andromache, at- 
tended by her little son and his nurse. The illustrious 
father extends his arms for his dear boy; but back- 
ward he inclines to the bosom of his fair-girdled nurse, 
crying aloud, alarmed at the sight of his loved father, 
terrified at the brazen helmet, and the horse-hair crest. 
His father and mother laugh. Hector immediately takes 
the helmet from his head, and places it all resplendent 
upon the ground. But when Astyanax perceived the 
countenance of the father, not that of the warrior, he 
was willing to be dandled and caressed. How awkward 
the minister who is always glittering in armor, and who 
goes forth to feed the lambs of the flock as he would to 
encounter the lion in his lair! 

Who has not seen the splendid effort prove utterly 
worthless in consequence of its irrelevancy? and who 
has not known a feeble production to electrify in conse- 
quence of its perfect adaptation? When a distinguished 
clergyman was requested to furnish for publication a 



388 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

copy of a sermon whicli lie had preached during a 
terrific thunder-storm, and which produced a tremendous 
effect, he agreed to comply with the request upon con- 
dition that the committee would agree to print the 
thunder and lightning which accompanied it. He knew 
that it derived its charm from its appropriateness. One 
of the great advantages which the extemporary orator 
has over one who uses a manuscript, arises from the 
fact, that he can take advantage of every little circum- 
stance that may occur to attract the attention of his 
hearers — the presence of some unexpected person, the 
appearance of a particular countenance, the entrance of 
a swallow through the window, the sudden rising of a 
cloud may suggest brilliant thoughts, happy illustrations, 
beautiful passages of Holy Writ, which, because fresh 
and appropriate, animate the speaker and startle the 
hearer. How thrilling must have been this passage ut- 
tered by an orator, when preaching before a monarch, 
whom he noticed to be talking : " When the lion roars 
the beasts of the earth tremble, and when the Almighty 
speaks let the kings of the earth keep silence." 

This advantage is similar to that which the scientific 
physician has over the empiric. The latter prescribes 
for the names of diseases, the former for their symptoms. 
Solomon has beautifully described the charm of appro- 
priateness : ^' Words fitly spoken, are like apples of gold 
in pictures of silver.'' 

What can secure the advantage of appropriateness but 
that habit of reliance upon one's own resources which 
leads to a close observance of every thing around us? 
A man of sense can hardly fail to speak and write fitly, 
who speaks and writes what his own intellect furnishes. 
The man who derives his efforts from books is like the 
blind giant — his blows are powerful, and when they 
happen to fall in the right place they do execution ; but 



ORIGINALITY. 389 

they generally miss the mark. But he who draws his 
matter from the hearts of his hearers is like the skillful 
archer who sees the mark before he lets his arrow fly, 
and can scarce be said to draw a bow at a venture. An 
original minister can easily get a skeleton, and then 
clothe it with muscles, and give it organs of life and 
sense, and above all animate it with a spirit, by going 
into any house in his neighborhood and conversing with 
its inmates half an hour; and when he brings it forth 
on Sabbath, it will be sure to do execution somewhere. 
An original man has not only an appropriate subject, 
but his illustrations are generally appropriate. They 
seem to grow out of his subject. They are not like the 
flowers of the nosegay, gathered for the vase — pretty, 
but scarce viewed before they wither; but like the 
flowers in the garden, rooted to the soil, and deriving 
nourishment from it. 

(3.) It forms a suitable style. There can be no elo- 
quence without propriety in this respect. A showy 
style, for instance, on a grave subject, is in as bad taste 
as the sparkling ornaments of the ball-room in the 
gloomy chambers of death. An inappropriate style is 
generally a mark of a feeble or dependent intellect. 
The mind never clothes thoughts purely its own in an 
unseemly dress. Nature suitably arrays her productions, 
whether in the natural or moral world. In the former 
she will not dress the animals of the polar regions 
as she does those of the equatorial. She will not orna- 
ment the beast that prowls the desert or the forest as 
she will the merry songster of the breeze — she gives 
no proboscis to the swallow that builds her nest by the 
altar — no wings to Behemoth, who trusteth that he can 
draw up Jordan into his mouth. Is she less judicious 
in her moral works ? Not when she has her way. She 
will be chaste and dignified in philosophy, oratorical 



390 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

in oratory, swift and graceful in song and satire. She 
will vary tlie appearance of her productions as she passes 
from the dissolving heats of the equator to the eternal 
snows of the pole. She will vary her machinery as 
she swims the deep, or sails the winds, or crawls the 
earth. Be original and you will be simple or vehement, 
neat, elegant, or brilliant, according as your subject may 
require. 

(4.) It suggests a suitable arrangement. This is in- 
dispensable to a good production. It is important in 
the adjustment of the different parts of an oration or 
composition, and also in the arrangement of the various 
portions of each part. An original genius will digest 
the subject before it thinks of the manner in which it is 
to be introduced, as naturally as a carpenter will erect 
his building before he puts on the roof. How awkward 
does that introduction sound which does not lead directly 
to the subject, and prepare the way before it ! Till a 
subject is matured^ how can one know what preposses- 
sions will require to be removed before it is presented, or 
what considerations will attract attention toward it? 

In making an oration, or writing an essay, a clear 
statement of the subject will of itself do much. The 
mind which has examined an}^ subject thoroughly will 
be able to state it clearly and forcibly, divide it naturally, 
and in the narration and explication spread light around 
it at every step. 

The management of arguments is of vast importance. 
aEschines, in a celebrated contest, requested the judges 
to confine Demosthenes to the same order in replying to 
his arguments as he had observed in making them; but 
Demosthenes was too well acquainted with the advantage 
of his own arrangement to be thus entrapped. It often 
happens that the ingenious disputant will reverse the 
order of his antagonist's arguments. But to the sober, 



ORIGINALITY. 391 

judicious mind, which has made itself master of its 
subject, no canons are absolutely necessary. 

Caesar, when he pushed his triumphs into Gaul, 
needed no rules of military warfare, but such as his good 
common sense and a knowledge of the number, weapons, 
and position of the foe suggested. He formed the tor- 
toise, the circle, or the wedge, according as he wished 
to scale a wall, to resist superior numbers, or rush to his 
camp through intervening ranks, I wish not to be 
understood that rules are useless, but that a thorough 
acquaintance with the subject may render them dis- 
pensable. 

(5.) It produces animation. Nothing can atone for 
the want of this — nothing can insure it so well as orig- 
inality. If a man's arguments are his own he will un- 
derstand them perfectly — he will therefore use them for 
the right purpose — he will perceive their bearing upon 
the issue. The very reviewing, marshaling, commanding 
of them, the observing of their accurate movements, the 
manner in which they rout the foe, and take the field, 
is of itself inspiring. If his sentiments are his own, 
they will of course be felt, and being felt they will be 
forcibly expressed — heart will always find a way to reach 
heart. 

There is generally a freedom from embarrassment, a 
kind of engaging ease of manner, attending the inde- 
pendent, original mind, which is of immense value. 
The attention being fixed upon the subject, it is not 
likely to be diverted by the audience, or any extraneous 
considerations. It must be admitted that the mind, 
though strong and original, can not always command an 
animated expression or delivery. There are some regions 
of thought naturally cold, yet, even there, the mind may 
occasionally exhibit warmth, like Lapland, which, amid 
eternal snows, has here and there a boiling fountain. 



392 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

There is a certain state of mental activity necessary to 
compass original thought, and this will always insure 
some degree of grace and animation. A ship, however 
poor, when in a storm, is a beautiful object. As she 
yields to the winds, and mounts the billows, now rising 
to the clouds, now sinking into the bosom of the deep, 
now cutting the white caps, and now shipping a mountain 
sea, she presents a spectacle of thrilling interest. 

There is something sublime in the humble human 
soul, when, afloat upon the wide universe, she rides the 
heaving billows of thought swept by the storm of passion. 
Her prow may be unornamented, her cargo poor, her 
movements irregular, but she has grace in every motion. 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 393 



IT is the duty of the Church to foster institutions of 
higher education. This follows, 

1. From the nature of God. He is infinitely wise; 
the development of his character is the development of 
his will. As the fact that he is lioly proves his will that 
we should be Ixoly^ so the fact that he is whe proves it 
to be his will that we should be ii^uc. That man must 
have false ideas of the Father of lights, who does not 
deem it the duty of Zion to diffuse science. What is 
science but truth? and what is truth but the adum- 
bration of God? The very first page of the book in 
which the Almighty reveals himself, is a sheet of sci- 
ence — in metaphysics, geology, natural history, etc. — and 
every other leaf of the Bible is of a similar character. 
No wonder, for He who showeth his word unto Jacob, is 
the same that telleth the number of the stars; and he is 
praised not only in his sanctuary, but in the firmament 
of his power. To the devotional mind, the heavens and 
the earth are like the seraphims whom the prophet saw in 
vision, hiding their faces within their wings, and cry- 
ing, one to another, " Holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts : 
the whole earth is full of his glory.'' Hence, the soul 
that comes from an intimate communion with God, is apt 
to shine like the face of Moses coming down from the 
mount. Hence, the Church is clothed like the sun. 
Hence, too, when she comes to moral spheres, like God, 



■' Delivered at the opening of Genesee College, N. Y. 



894 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

when he came to chaos, she says, '^Let there be light/' 
and light comes at her bidding. 

Who penetrates the earth, and explores the heavens ? 
who analyzes the laws of mind, and extends farther and 
farther its dominion over matter? who kindles the radi- 
ant centers of knowledge, that are destined, by their 
mingled rays, soon to illuminate the whole earth ? The 
Church of the living God, for God himself is light. 
Men have argued against science, because the devil is 
one of the most scientific beings in the universe. The 
misfortune for the argument is, that God is altogether the 
most scientific. 

2. From the character of the Almighty, let us turn 
to draw an argument from the nature of the human mind. 
It is impossible to be pleased or displeased with what we 
do not perceive, or to have desire or aversion, without the 
emotions of pleasure or displeasure, or to pursue or avoid 
an object toward which we feel neither attracted nor re- 
pelled. Moreover, the conduct conforms to the percep- 
tion. If the most lovely object be apprehended as un- 
lovely, it will be hated and shunned; if the most hateful 
be viewed as lovely, it will be admired and pursued. 
Hence, there is an intimate connection between knowl- 
edge and religion; for, as conduct depends upon knowl- 
edge, religion depends upon conduct. What is it but 
obedience to God? Hence, the Bible represents hell as 
'^ darkness," heaven as ^^ light." To deprive the world 
of the Bible, is to cover it with heathenism; to cover it 
with the knowledge of God, is to produce the millennium. 
I refer now to Biblical knowledge particularly; but as na- 
ture and providence are from the same hand as the Bible, 
they must be in harmony with it, and their legitimate 
tendency must be toward Christianity. Some, I know, 
have alleged that science has usually opposed the Scrip- 
tures; they should have said, false interpretations of 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 395 

them. Thus Conclaves in the days of Copernicus said, 
''If you hold that the earth turns round, you deny the 
truth of the Bible; but they could not prevent the world 
from turning, nor themselves from turning with it." So 
men may say, if you deny that the earth was created so 
many years ago, you overthrow the Scriptures ; but they 
can not blot out God's handwriting upon the mountains, 
nor introduce discord into the harmony which subsists 
between geology and Genesis. Some philosophers, I ad- 
mit, have tried to use science against revelation. But 
which of the scientific discoveries alleged to be inconsist- 
ent with Scripture, has not been reconciled to its pages? 
Which of the mountain minds that mark the great steps 
of scientific progress, and throw their shadows over gen- 
erations, has failed to bow its reverential and honored 
head before the Jehovah of the Bible ? For example, 
Kepler thus opens his sublime views: "I beseech my 
reader that, not unmindful of the divine goodness be- 
stowed on man, he do with me celebrate and praise the 
wisdom and greatness of the Creator which I open to 
him." And Newton thus closes his Principia: "We 
know [God] only by his properties and attributes, by the 
wise and admirable structure of things around us, and by 
their final causes; we admire him on account of his per- 
fections; we venerate and worship him on account of his 
government." But time would fail to speak of Boyle, 
and Locke, and Pascal, and Boerhaave, etc. A few per- 
sons, I grant, have been philosophers without being 
Christians, but they were perhaps nearer to Christianity 
than they otherwise would have been, and their skepti- 
cism only proves that the tendency of science to devo- 
tion, can not overcome all opposing forces, or dispense 
with supernatural light. Many object to science because 
it is lofty in spirit. False science onli/ is so. The higher 
a man ascends, the wider is his field of vision, and the 



396 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

deeper his humility. The chief of British philosophers, 
at the close of life, said, "I feel as a child that has been 
wandering by the sea-shore, and picked up a few pebbles, 
while the vast ocean of truth lies before me." The 
prince of Jewish philosophers said, ^'When I consider 
thy heavens, the moon and stars which thou hast ordain- 
ed; what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son 
of man that thou makest account of him?" Although 
knowledge is not always followed by religion, religion 
must always be preceded by a certain amount of knowl- 
edge. Hence, we show the duty of the Church to impart 
knowledge, 

3. From the very nature of religion. This consists 
summarily in righteousness and godliness. What is 
righteousness but the doing of right ? To this two 
things are necessary : we must know the rule of right, 
and feel the impulsion to observe it. What is the rule 
of right but the will of God ? and where is the will of 
God expressed but in his word? and whence are the 
most operative motives to obedience ? Surely from a per- 
ception of relations. And where are these relations ex- 
hibited in the most endearing forms, but in the sacred or- 
acles? We mvsf, then, understand the Scriptures; and to 
do this, we must have no small degree of knowledge ; the 
meaning of words, and the laws of language, at least. 
A mere saving knowledge may be communicated orally, 
or obtained through a very imperfect acquaintance with 
our mother tongue, but who would be satisfied with this ? 
or who would think that he had done enough for his 
fellow-man to have imparted it? Not an enlightened 
Church of God. We abhor slavery; and wherein is its 
chief woe? Not in exhausted strength, or deficient 
food, or the chain which binds the limbs, or the lash 
which draws the blood, but in the padlock which swings 
upon the mind. It is because man is an immortal being 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 397 

on trial for eternity, and because slavery, by locking 
the mind, closes the appointed communication between 
God and the human heart, that it is so unspeakable a 
curse. Beware, lest, in your boasted liberty, you endure 
the crowning calamity of African bondage. Better be 
without friends, without raiment, without shelter, with- 
out food, than without that knowledge which is necessary 
to bring you into unembarrassed communication with God, 
through his word. To this degree of attainment should 
the Church feel bound to bring all her children. But 
should she stop here ? The word of God was not origin- 
nally given in our mother tongue, but in languages more 
beautiful and perfect. Should not the Church be able to 
read it in the words in which it fell from the lips of God? 
I do not say that every Christian should, though in this 
there were no harm; but surely the Church is culpable if 
many of her members do not thus read God's message. 
Suppose this assembly should receive a communication 
from the Emperor of Russia, on a subject in which the 
temporal interest of every member is concerned, would 
you be satisfied with a translation ? would you not like to 
preserve the on^m«7 document? and deem it indispensable 
to have some one in your midst who could read it, and 
thus settle important questions which might arise in your 
minds, and that could no otherwise be solved than by 
reference to the words of the original instrument? How 
did the Reformers talk upon this point ? Hear Martin 
Luther: ''For 'the devil smelled the roast;' that if 
the languages revived, his kingdom would get a hole that 
he could not easily stop up again. And let us understand 
this, that we shall not be able to preserve the Gospel 
without the languages. The languages are the sheath in 
which this sword of the Spirit is hid ; they are the casket 
in which this jewel is borne; they are the vessel in 
which this drink is contained; they are the cupboard in 



398 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

which this food is laid; and; as the Evangel itself show- 
eth, they are the baskets which hold these loaves and 
fishes; yea, if we should so err as to let the languages 
go — which God forbid — we shall not only lose the Gospel, 
but it shall come to pass that we shall not know to speak 
or write either Latin or German aright." 

But we are often reminded that our Methodist fathers 
preserved and preached the Gospel without the languages. 
Let us never forget, however, that Methodism was born in 
a college; and though many of her ablest ministers were 
without classical attainments, they followed a mind that 
was as ripe in scholarship as any of his age. That purity^ 
and vigor of style, that power of reasoning, and that 
reach of thought which characterized the productions of 
John Wesley, could never have been attained without 
early discipline, under the best masters. He was aided 
by one who united the clearness of Aristotle and the ele- 
gance of Plato with the spirit of Christ, and who checked 
his foes by a sword that lost none of its keenness by 
being polished. Our fathers not only molded their ser- 
mons and shaped their controversies upon elegant models, 
but uttered their emotions in songs composed by one who 
was familiar alike with Judea's harp and Apollo's lyre. 

If it be important that we preserve the divine oracles 
in the dead languages, and secure, from age to age, a 
supply of minds to read them as they were first given, it 
is our duty to establish professorships of such languages, 
whither a portion of our youth may be sent for instruc- 
tion. Do you say, leave this to Providence? But does 
Providence act miraculously or instrumentally ? And 
what more suitable instrumentality can be provided than 
the one I have described ? Our fathers understood this. 
Mr. Wesley, as early as 1748, planted Kingswood school, 
and shortly after, that of Woodhouse Grove, whose fruits 
we are now reaping, in the productions of such minds as 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 399 

Adam Clarke, and the profound and brilliant ministry of 
tlie Weslejan Church in England and her colonies. 
Bishops Coke and Asbury, among their earliest labors, 
founded a high school; and their successors, animated 
by the same spirit, have established seminaries, colleges, 
and universities all through the land, and are reaping 
their advantages in all the departments of ecclesiastical 
exertion. Who stands at the head of our Sabbath 
schools? of our missions? of our quarterly reviews? of 
our monthly and weekly publications ? 

But let us examine the other branch of religion — god- 
liness; that is, God-likeness, or the imitation of God. 
But how shall we imitate him if we do not know him ? 
and how shall we know him but by his attributes? and 
how shall we learn his attributes but by their manifesta- 
tions? and what are their manifestations but the objects 
of scientific knowledge ? God's attributes are natural and 
moral. The former are wisdom, power, goodness. Now, 
how arc we to get ideas of these ? Not by words — they 
are but signs. Would you teach a child of divine wisdom, 
for example, you lead him through nature, whether from 
the dew-drop to the ocean, from the moss to the oak, 
from the worm to the angel, from earth to the worlds on 
high. Doing so, you do just what the Bible does; it in- 
troduces us to God through the heavens and the earth, 
and all along renews our acquaintance with him by the 
waters, which he measures in the hollow of his hand; the 
heavens, which he metes out with a span ; the mountains, 
which he weighs in scales; the sweet influences of Plei- 
ades, which he binds; and the bands of Orion, which he 
loosens. 

True, the Divine attributes are traceable upon the face 
of nature, even by the untutored mind; but how vastly 
more impressive are they when the light of science 
shines upon them, leading the mind from facts to princi- 



400 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

pies, from principles to systems, from systems to designs, 
from harmonious designs to unity of plan, and from unity 
of plan to the one only and true God. How vast the 
difference between the adoration of the most devout sav- 
age, and that of the rapt soul of the immortal Newton ! 
Science, I know, may be perverted, but must we therefore 
cease to cultivate it? The English language may be 
used in swearing, and lying, and slandering, but must 
we therefore all be dumb ? The tendency of science is to 
uproot superstition, enthusiasm, and idolatry, and increase 
our knowledge of the true God, and our veneration for 
him. It is therefore the duty of Christians to foster the 
natural and exact sciences, and of course to establish in- 
stitutions where they may be taught. x\s we are im- 
pressed with the natural attributes of God by studying 
his works, we may be impressed with his moral attri- 
butes by pondering his providence. I grant that we 
could not discover them by these means. The mingling of 
justice and mercy, which we notice in the administration 
of this world, might produce confusion in our minds con- 
cerning God's moral character, did not the Bible reduce 
things to order by opening to our view the world to come, 
and displaying the scenes of Calvary. But after we have 
seen the face of God in Christ, it is well that we study 
him by his providences; that, through the aid of history, 
we mark how, by mysterious hands, vice is borne down- 
ward, and virtue upward, and how all things in the gen- 
eral sweep of ages tend to drive wickedness from the 
earth, and bring in the reign of universal righteousness. 
More particularly may we see, in the history of the past, 
how dark is the noblest light of science without the light 
of revelation, and how incapable of renovation is the 
earth without the redeeming scheme. I am aware that 
many would have us avoid history, and especially the his- 
tory of classic ages, because of its errors and impurities. 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 401 

For the same reason, to be consistent, they should 
deny us social intercourse. There is more corruptioQ 
in the hearts of the living, than the writings of the 
dead ; and the piety that is in danger from a page of 
Livy or a line of Horace, should not be trusted in the 
hall of justice, or the streets of the metropolis. The 
Bible itself recounts the errors of men as well as the 
wonders of God, and so should the Church in all ages. 
Hence, she should have her libraries and her instructors 
in ancient literature, that she may illustrate in the deal- 
ings of God with man the teachings of his word. 

4. We argue from the nature of the Gospel. It is a 
revelation from heaven, and it came with its appropriate 
proof. The fact that God has given such proof, is a dem- 
onstration that it is necessary; and even if it were not, it 
would be to every upright and devout mind an interest- 
ing matter of inquiry. 

The Gospel is a copious volume of truth; and although 
its leading revelations, such as the existence of God, the 
sinfulness of man, and salvation by Christ, are written 
so that he who runs may read, yet it contains a vast 
amount of truth which can not be obtained without much 
information, and a good degree of mental development. 
In interpreting the Bible, as in interpreting other books, 
we must discriminate between hist'ory and command, be- 
tween the special and the general, between the temporary 
and the permanent, between the literal and the figurative, 
between the desire and the promise. Some think if we 
are only mindful of the precepts of Christianity, it mat- 
ters but little whether we understand its teachings; but 
the precepts rest upon the teachings; a misapprehension 
of the latter leads to a misapplication of the former. 
Joshua, by Divine direction, entered Canaan with fire and 
sword; Cromwell thought he should do likewise, and this 
mistake, propagated through his praying lines, made 

34 



402 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

them so calm in carnage, so irresistible in battle, so pious 
when dripping in fraternal blood. 

One reads that the Holy Spirit leads into all truth. 
Some friend presents to his mind a wild scheme of social- 
ism, and insists upon his entering in^o it. Instead of 
examining it according to general principles and provi- 
dential analogies, he retires to his closet, and prays that 
God would inform him whether it is proper that he should 
adopt it. Mistaking an agitation of body or mind for 
a divine breathing, he embarks his property and repu- 
tation in an enterprise which must issue in ruin and 
disgrace. Another is in doubt concerning a certain in- 
terpretation of the prophecies. Instead of examining it 
by the rules of exegesis and the light of history, he prays 
that God may inform him of its correctness. He mis- 
takes a conception for a sensation, or experiences an un- 
usual peace of mind; and, supposing he is answered 
affirmatively, he rises from his knees a believer in the 
interpretation, proof against all the researches of learning 
and the resources of logic. Conceiving that he is in- 
structed by Infinite Mind, what were even mathematical 
demonstration against him? In all these cases the prin- 
ciples are right, the feelings are right, the education only 
is wrong — the faith has not a rational. Scriptural basis — 
the prayer could plead no promise. Little does he know 
of the Church, who does not know that the pictures I have 
drawn have many prototypes. I need but name Jemima 
Wilkinson, Joanna Southcot, Thorns, and Joe Smith, to 
show that, under the spires of English cathedrals, and 
around the blaze of Puritan chandeliers, a simple-hearted, 
religious people may be diverted from truth for want 
of instruction and training. We hear much of the fruits 
of the tree of knowledge, but who warns us against the 
brambles of ignorance that infest the vineyard of tho 
Lord? 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 403 

Some may inquire, "Is not the great purpose of the 
Gospel to awaken love to man and God; and, under the 
influence of this emotion, can we fail to understand our 
duty?'' Love, though the fulfilling of the law, requires 
to be enlightened. Parental love has driven many a 
child to the gallows; Christian love unwittingly may have 
injured its object by misdirecting its exertions. For more 
than sixty years, the Bishop of Chiapa labored and 
prayed to introduce African slavery into the American 
continent — a measure which he supposed would be a 
mercy to the Indians of Hispaniola, an accommodation to 
its colonists, and a blessing to the African race; but his 
love, not being consistent with justice, led to the desola- 
tion of Africa, the horrors of the middle passage, and the 
woes of American slavery — woes which an angel's pencil 
can not paint, and which God only knows what age shall 
end. Some ask, "Is not conscience a sufficient guide?" 
Saul of Tarsus once hurried from city to city, hunting, 
imprisoning, murdering Christians. He acted in all good 
conscience, and thought he was doing God service till 
light from the face of Jesus struck his eyeballs. Yet he 
was not innocent; nor were Charles IX, Gregory XIII, 
Louis XIY, Bloody Mary and her Commission Court, 
though they may have acted in all good conscience; for it 
was their duty to have not only a good, but an educated 
conscience — to examine not only their motives, but their 
j>r{nciples. 

But some one may say, you make no difference between 
education and religion. Is not religion a work of the 
Holy Ghost upon the heart? True, but how does the Holy 
Spirit operate, with or without the truth ? If without, 
why does not the work of conversion go on in heathen as 
well as Christian lands? "Ye shall know the fruth/' says 
Christ, "and the truth shall make you free." Hence says 
St. Paul, "How, then, shall they call on Him in whom 



404 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

they have not believed? and how shall they believe in 
Him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall they 
hear without a preacher?" If the Gospel must be 
proclaimed, who does not see that the mind must be pre- 
pared to receive it? Ask him who bringcth good tidings, 
who publisheth peace, whether he would not rather 
undertake to evangelize an intelligent than an ignorant 
people. Why do they whose feet are so beautiful upon 
the mountains of heathendom make such slow progress? 
Surely, because the mind to which the}' minister is undis- 
ciplined, undeveloped, uninformed. Why does the Church 
make such slow progress in our own land? Partly, at 
least, in consequence of an inability, in the common mind, 
to comprehend the instruction of the pulpit — to gener- 
alize specific statements, to take wide surveys of duty, and 
to apply general principles to the details of life. All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 
for doctrine — and this is its first function — then follows, 
for reproof, then for conviction, then for instruction in 
righteousness. 

Finally, we argue from the nature of the duties 
directly or indirectly required of the Church. Zion 
is called to disciple all nations — a duty which she 
can not discharge without education. Remarkable must 
be the piety which makes an ignorant man eminently 
useful; culpable must be the indifference which renders 
an intelligent man otherwise. I grant that a few men of 
imperfect education have been instrumental in the accom- 
plishment of great good, but little could they have done 
without the aid of others more highly favored. True, the 
apostles were ignorant, but they sat at the feet of Christ; 
they understood Greek, and no sooner were they commis- 
sioned than, by a miracle, they were made scholars. When 
God chooses the weak things of the world to confound 
the wise, he generally makes those weak things strong. 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 405 

The Cliurch owes a duty to the state. What Luther 
said to parents we may say to Churches: "Now if thou 
hast a child that is fit to receive instruction, and art able 
to hold him to it, and dost not, what shall become of 
the secular government, its laws and its peace? Thou 
warrest against the secular government as much as in thee 
lies, like the Turk, yea, like the devil himself; for thou 
withholdest from the countrj^ a redeemer, comfort, corner- 
stone." More particularly is this true of our own country. 
As our Government secures protection to the Church, the 
Church should share the burdens of the Government; and 
among them is that of furnishing the talent for its ad- 
ministration. Where the Church is responsible, there 
has she privilege; and, so far as she has voters, and as 
long as the Government is a representative democracy, 
so far and so long she is responsible for its administra- 
tion. It is to be feared that we do not appreciate our 
position, or the influence coming down upon us from high 
places would be less pernicious. In the early history of 
our country, our great men were good; they revered the 
Bible, and founded the Government upon its pillars of 
eternal truth. But there has been a great decline, both 
of wisdom and virtue, since their day. This is owing, 
partly, at least, to the fact that our literary institutions 
have so imperfectly supplied the wants of the country. 
Let not good men think meanly of their children, but pol- 
ish their golden minds, that, if need be, they may shine as 
stars in the galaxy of their country's statesmen. Every 
son born upon our soil has a right to aspire to the Presi- 
dency. Let him be so educated that the right be not a 
nullit}^ We have no wish to interfere with the rights of 
conscience — we pray that this Government may never 
show any religious preferences; but we wish to realize the 
bright vision of one of our fathers — Dr. Coke — who, 
speaking of the college which he founded — in connection 



406 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

with Bishop Asbury — said: '^And on this plan we trust 
that our seminaries of learning will in time send forth 
men who will be a blessing to their country in every laud- 
able office and employment in life, thereby uniting the 
two greatest ornaments of intelligent beings, which 
are too often separated — deep learning and genuine re- 
ligion/' 

We owe it to ourselves to educate, and instruct, and 
train our ministry, A more important office can not be 
conceived than that of a minister of the Gospel. His 
business is with souls, and for eternity. There is no 
other profession which does not demand preparatory irt- 
Btruction and training. There is no trade so simple as 
not to require an apprenticeship. Why, then, should 
men without preparation commence the work of minister- 
ing in the temple of God? Are spirits more easily op- 
erated upon than bodies ? Is mind more readily molded 
than matter? Are the laws of the soul more easily 
understood than the properties of marble? Now, I am 
aware that conviction, conversion, sanctification, are all 
of God ; and yet God works in grace as in nature, through 
appointed agencies, and according to immutable laws. 
The only question is, whether these agencies are appro- 
priate or otherwise, and whether these laws are analogous 
to the other laws of the universe, or directly the reverse 
of them. God might propagate the Gospel without min- 
isters, but it pleases him, by the foolishness o^ preaching, 
to save them that believe. The earthen vessels, all ad- 
mit, are necessary to transmit the waters of grace. 
'^ But," some say, ''let them be mere channels, lest they 
tincture the stream: let them have no science. '' Then, 
of course, they should not learn geography, or grammar, 
or even the alphabet, for this is all science. Let them 
be placed in the pulpit, mouth open, and let the people 
approach with their ear-buckets to draw from these wells 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 407 

of salvation, as occasion requires. Doubtless, God might 
evangelize a world just so; but does he? 

Does he not employ active, suitable agencies to accom- 
plish his work? When, in olden times, he blessed 
Israel and administered to them the stay of bread and 
of water, he gave them the mighty man, and the judge, 
and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, and 
the honorable man, and the counselor, and the cunning 
artificer, and the eloquent orator; and when he cursed 
them, he took these all away, and gave children to be 
her princes, and babes to rule over her. I may be told 
that God chooses feeble instruments to carry on his work, 
that the excellency of the power may be of him. True, 
and of whom have we learned this but of the most 
learned of the apostles, who was not the less qualified for 
his learning and talents to avoid enticing words of man's 
wisdom, and preach in the demonstration of the Spirit 
and of power. 

If ministers should possess suitable qualifications, how 
shall they obtain them ? I know of but three ways ; 
namely, intuition, inspiration, and instruction. The first 
is out of the question; the second, it seems to me, is 
nearly so; for what need have we for any labor of 
thought, for any instruction from books, for even the 
Bible itself, if men called of God are also inspired of him 
to preach the truth ? To them it might be said, not 
^^ study to show thyself a workman that needeth not to be 
ashamed;'^ not 'Hake heed unto thyself and unto the doc- 
trine f' not ''continue thou in the things which thou 
hast /ea?-iiec?;" not "make full proof of thy ministry," but 
" take no thought what or how ye shall speak, for in that 
same hour that ye stand in the pulpit it shall be given 
you.'^ But why argue thus, since all admit that a min- 
ister must be instructed if he would be a workman 
approved unto God. True, his success does not flow 



408 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

ejfficiently from liis attainments or diligence. The gales 
of the divine Spirit alone can waft the vessel of Zion over 
the ocean of life to the port of heaven. Nevertheless, that 
vessel should be manned by a crew that has knowledge 
of the principles of spiritual navigation, and skill in the 
art of spreading or reefing the spiritual sails. And this 
knowledge and skill are to be obtained in part — I say 
not wholly — just as the knowledge of Davies's Legendre 
and the skill of the expert sailor is. 

The minister muU learn, study, read, pray, and preach. 
When and how can he best do this ? Some say, after he 
enters upon his vocation. Do you say so of the doctor or 
the lawyer? True, if a man could obtain practice with- 
out science, he might become skillful in time, but at what 
sacrifice of comfort, and character, and conscience on his 
own part, and of property, and health, and life on the part 
of his patrons ? 

How shall ministers be instructed ? by their own un- 
aided exertions; or, as physicians, and lawyers, and 
artists, and mechanics usually are, under the tuition of 
competent masters? We hesitate not to say, in the 
latter method, because it must be attended with a great 
saving both of time and money, and because, also, it 
insures a greater degree of accuracy. We should then 
have in all our higher institutions instructors to train 
the class of the prophets. 

''But," it is asked, ''is there not a special providence 
over the world which may be relied on to furnish her 
with all necessary ministerial labor?" True, and that 
special providence requires you to use the means. Have 
we not thus far been furnished with able pastors with- 
out any provision for special ministerial instruction ? 
Granted. Why, then, make such provision for the future ? 
I answer, circumstances have changed in the Church and 
in the world. Though the Bible is the same, yet there may 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 409 

be new ways of administering it; the sun alters not, 
but there are new methods of applying his rays; the 
human mind is the same, but there are new methods of 
transmitting its thoughts; the earth is the same, but 
there are new ways of traveling over its surface; the 
Churches and the nations are in the same position, 
geographically, as they were fifty years ago, but they 
have moved both intellectually and morally. ^^Let the 
world change," cries one, ''we don't." Stop; don't you 
lie down when the sun sets and get up when he rises; 
don't you kindle fires in winter and open windows in 
summer; don't you sow in spring and reap in harvest; 
did you not read without spectacles in youth, and have 
you not put them on now? " Formerly we had good 
preachers, good students, good schools, without black- 
boards, maps, or books." Formerly you crossed rivers 
without bridges, and seas without steam, and countries 
without railways, but would you prefer to do so now? 
We must not overlook the fact that our fathers were men 
of extraordinary natural ability — Asbury, M'Kendree, 
Soule, Bigelow, Strange, Collins, Cooper, etc., were men 
who would have been distinguished in any department 
of exertion. When men of this description succeed in 
the ministry, we must not infer that there is no need of 
preparation for the ministry; for, by the same process? 
we might show that there is no need of schools to pre- 
pare men for medicine, law, or philosophy, since it is not 
difficult to find persons in all the professions who, by the 
force of surpassing genius, have put themselves in the 
front rank, although they had scarce any previous prep- 
aration. The Methodist pioneers have apparently no 
successors worthy of them. Not because there are none 
in their footsteps who would have won the same distinc- 
tion had they been leaders, and not followers, but be. 

cause, while native talent does not progress from age to 

35 



410 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

age, the world does. Could we call back tlie fathers and 
make them live their lives over again, extraordinary as 
they were, they would not occupy the same relative 
position. 

Men of genius, such as we have had and now have, we 
may expect to have hereafter, but not in such numbers 
as to supply the demands of the country and the world. 
God is sending the old world by millions to our shores. 
In one of our valleys alone we could victual the whole 
population of the earth, and God only knows how soon 
we shall have to do it; hither come the rich to invest 
capital ; the poor to seek bread ; the wise to impart 
knowledge; the silly, they scarce know why; the timid 
to escape revolution; the bold to seek adventures. 
Whence do they come? from all the earth, but chiefly 
from the dominions of Romanism. Welcome, thrice 
welcome ; they come to seek refuge — may they find salva- 
tion ! But, that they may, we must bestir ourselves; we 
must send ministers by thousands through the valleys of 
the west; we must station them by hundreds on the 
mountain tops, in the wilderness, and along the shores of 
the Pacific. 

This we owe to ourselves, to Jesus Christ, to perishing 
souls. Egypt, Persia, Turkey, and the islands of the 
sea, are taking their stand among civilized nations, are 
ofi"ering inviting fields of Christian labor; India is 
whitening to the harvest of salvation ; China has relaxed 
her unsocial exclusiveness, and opened her paths to the 
footsteps of the evangelist; Africa, so long known only 
to geography, is accessible at both her extremities and 
along her eastern and western borders. 

The mountains of Asia, the valleys of the Nile, the 
Niger, the Senegal, and the Gambia, the snowy peaks of 
Greenland, and the volcanic summits of intertropical 
regions cry out to us for help. Ten thousand misdon- 



HIGHER EDUCATION. 411 

aries would not satisfy the demand of the present hour. 
What shall we do? ^^ Pray ye the Lord of the harvest 
that he would send forth laborers into his harvest." We 
have no faith in any that God does not call; but should 
we not act consistently with our prayer, work in accord- 
ance with our faith? — look up the buried talent of the 
Churcli and furbish it? May we not expect that many 
who now feel no impulse to the pastor's work would re- 
ceive an undoubted call to it if they found themselves 
possessed of the prerequisite qualifications for missionary 
labor? For how can one feel called to preach in a lan- 
guage that he knows not, or to acquire an unknown 
tongue without some fitness for linguistic acquisitions? 
Let us deprive our youth of all reasonable excuses, and 
then expect that they shall be called by thousands. Do 
not say, ''Wait till we have the means in the missionary 
treasury to support them.'' Get the men, the means will 
follow. Put down such a man as Luther, AVesley, Fisk, 
Carey, or Wayland any where on the round globe, and he 
will draw to himself the means of support and soon build 
a chapel over his head. 

Some exclaim against educated preachers because they 
fear such will preach science instead of Gospel. It does not 
follow, however, that a man must preach science because 
he possesses it. Because a man has plenty of silver and 
gold, must his tea-spoons necessarily be too large for the 
mouths of his children ? It is poverty that delights in 
display — the smatterer that interlards his discourse with 
Latin and Greek. Some men depreciate cultivated style 
because it is not plain — it is of all others the most 
plain. He is an uneducated warrior that arms himself 
with bracelets, and rings, and nose-jewels; the educated 
one asks only weapons. It has been affirmed by croakers 
that there has been a decline in the piety of the min- 
istry, keeping pace with their progress in knowledge. 



412 EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS. 

Suppose this allegation be true, it does not follow that 
this progress is the cause of that decline; if this is even 
so, it would prove too much for even the objector him- 
self — it would prove the favorite dogma of the Roman 
Church, that ^^ ignorance is the mother of devotion," 
and that the true policy of Zion is to go back to the 
dark ages ; but I do not believe the statement, I am one 
of those happy men who see in the world and in the 
Church perpetual improvement. 



THE END. 



3A77 ^ 



\\^ 



